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古代日本的可爱

Ancient Japanese Cuteness

一切小事，无论大小，都是最可爱的。——清少纳言《

枕草子》

All small things, no matter what they are, all small things are most adorable.

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon

《枕草子》是日本文学的经典之作，由一千多年前的朝臣清少纳言（965-1017）创作。书中涵盖了众多主题——爱情、宫廷八卦、诗歌、自然之美以及四季的韵律——所有这些都透过一位才华横溢、风趣幽默的女性的视角展现出来。这本书对日本女性的影响一直延续到现代。1

A classic work of Japanese literature, The Pillow Book was written more than a thousand years ago by a courtier named Sei Shōnagon (965–1017). It covers many topics – love, court gossip, poetry, the beauty of nature and the rhythm of the seasons – all filtered through the eye of an irrepressibly intelligent woman who is, above all, fun. The book has influenced Japanese women all the way up to modern times.1

《枕草子》也体现了一种美学的早期表述，这种美学最终发展成为如今的“卡哇伊”文化。当我问日本人他们能想到的最早的“卡哇伊”例子时，答案往往是《枕草子》里的“可爱之物清单”（Utsukushiki mono）。几乎每个人都知道这段话——它经常被纳入日本学校的课程。17

The Pillow Book also contains one of the earliest articulations of an aesthetic that eventually became today’s kawaii culture. When I ask Japanese people to name the earliest example of 17kawaii they can think of, the answer is often the ‘list of adorable things’ (Utsukushiki mono) from The Pillow Book. Almost everyone knows this passage – it’s frequently included in the Japanese school curriculum.

《枕草子》首次尝试以散文形式记录与孩子、动物和物品之间那些令人心动的短暂邂逅。虽然“可爱”的情感或许是每个人的共同体验，因为它是人体生理的一部分，但这份清单展现了“可爱”在女性文化中的重要性。更重要的是，它表明，在一位才华横溢的作家笔下，这种简单的情感可以升华为伟大的艺术表达。

The Pillow Book includes the first attempt in prose to catalogue the small, brief encounters with children, animals and objects that pierce the heart with cuteness. Although the emotion of cuteness may have been part of everyone’s experience because it is part of our biology, the list shows how cuteness was central to women’s culture. More importantly, it demonstrates that in the hands of a talented writer this simple feeling can be elevated into an expression of great art.

清少纳言于公元993年进入贞子天皇的宫廷时，已年近三十——比新晋侍臣的年龄要大得多。天皇本人比她年轻十岁左右，但她聪慧过人，重视侍臣的学识和才华。2两人成为了挚友。

When Sei Shōnagon entered the court of Empress Teishi in the year 993, she was in her late twenties – older than usual for a new court attendant. The empress herself was about ten years younger, but she was an intelligent and accomplished woman who prized learning and wit among her attendants.2 The pair became firm friends.

侍奉皇后的宫女们过着与世隔绝的生活，几乎与女权主义价值观格格不入。她们被禁止向男性露面，只能跪在屏风或窗帘后与来访的男士交谈。只有确定没有男性在场，她们才能踏上宫廷的走廊或在花园里散步。宫廷女性极少有机会离开宫廷，她们会乘坐马车，透过芦苇格子窗窥视外面的世界。3这就是平安时代（日本历史上从公元794年到1185年的一段时期）上流社会女性的生活。

The cloistered lives of the women who served the empress hardly suggest feminist values. Forbidden to show their faces to men, they knelt behind screens or curtains to converse with gentlemen callers. Only when they were sure no men were present could they venture onto the palace’s veranda or walk in the gardens. On the rare occasions they left the palace grounds, court women rode in carriages, peering at the outside world through reed lattice windows.3 Such was life for upper-class women in the Heian era, a period of Japanese history that ran from 794 to 1185.

然而，女性在这个世界里至关重要。她们拥有继承权，包括财产和继承权。4因此，尽管平安时代的女性被禁止公开行使权力，但在爱情和艺术等其他领域，她们仍然与男性平等相处。5但她们的文学作品至今仍具有影响力，其原因在于18她们在诗歌、日记和小说中展现的优美艺术价值。6女性在文学艺术领域获得影响力，部分原因是男性在制定文明和学术标准的过程中，在诗歌和文学方面却显得游移不定。

Yet women were important in this world. They possessed the rights of inheritance, including of property and succession.4 Thus, although they were barred from the overt exercise of power, women at the Heian court still dealt with men on equal terms in other areas, like love and art.5 But the reason their literary works still have an impact today concerns the artistic 18values they expressed so beautifully in their poems, diaries and novels.6 Women gained influence in the literary arts in part because men, in the process of setting the standards of civilisation and learning, left themselves adrift when it came to poetry and literature.

与许多其他亚洲国家一样，日本长期以来视中国为一切文明的源头，从政府到法律，从艺术到建筑，无所不包。甚至连书写系统也源自中国。然而，诗歌却带来了一个问题。中国诗歌的惯例遵循着日本人不熟悉的结构和发音，并且要求诗歌必须提及中国特有的事物，从历史事件到名山大川。早期尝试用中文创作诗歌的日本诗人，其作品并不十分成功。“不难想象，”文学学者唐纳德·基恩写道，“这些诗歌大多极其贫乏。” 7

Like many other Asian countries, Japan had long looked to China as the source of all that was civilised, importing everything from government to law, art to architecture. Even the writing system was a Chinese import. Poetry, however, posed a problem. Chinese poetic conventions conformed to unfamiliar structures and sounds, and dictated that references be made to particularly Chinese things, from historical events to famous mountains. Early Japanese poets trying to compose poetry in Chinese didn’t fare particularly well. ‘As might easily be imagined,’ writes the literary scholar Donald Keene, ‘most of this poetry is exceedingly poor.’7

平安时代的女性没有学习书写汉字；尽管像清这样的少数上流社会女性确实学会了一些，但她们不得不向男性隐瞒自己的知识。清可以提及她对中国古典文学的了解，但不能在公共场合背诵。8不过，到了她那个时代，出现了一种变通的方法——一种名为“假名”的日语表音字母。由于男性被要求用中文写诗，因此用母语写的诗歌和散文被称为“女人的手写文字”（女出）。

Women of the Heian era were not taught to write Chinese characters; although a few upper-class women like Sei did manage to learn some, they had to hide their knowledge from men. Sei could allude to her knowledge of classical Chinese literature, but she couldn’t recite it in public.8 However, by her time there was a workaround – a phonetic Japanese alphabet called kana. Since men were expected to write poetry in Chinese, poetry and prose written in the native language became known as writing in a ‘woman’s hand’ (onna-de).

男性有时确实会使用假名写作。例如，当他们想让女性读者理解他们的爱情诗时，这很有帮助。此外，那些从事日记等被认为是女性专属的文学体裁的男性，也常常假扮成女性。9用母语写作使男性和女性都能自由地表达内心的感受，而这些私密的叙述也与女性的文学创作息息相关。

Men did sometimes write using kana. It was helpful, for instance, when they wanted a love-poem to be understood by a female recipient. In addition, men who wrote in literary genres considered to be the province of women, such as diaries, often pretended to be female.9 Writing in their native language enabled both men and women the freedom to express their innermost feelings, and these intimate accounts became associated with women’s literary production.

如今，人们可能会在浪漫邂逅后向爱人发送精心挑选的表情符号19；而在清的时代，她们会发送一首用优雅书法书写的情诗，这首诗的纸张颜色和质地都经过精心挑选，像折纸一样折叠起来，并配上一束相配的鲜花。在日本平安时代，这种品味至关重要。不雅的诗歌引用、略显草率的书法、质地错误的纸张、稀释的墨水：任何这样的失误都会扼杀一段萌芽的恋情，就像今天一串不敏感的表情符号一样。10这种在品味方面运用判断力的能力使平安女性能够创造出新的审美享受领域；在清的例子中，这包括探索小孩、动物和物品的可爱所带来的乐趣。

Today, people might send a carefully chosen emoji to a 19lover after a romantic encounter; in Sei’s time, they would send a love-poem penned in elegant calligraphy on paper carefully chosen for its colour and quality, folded like origami and accompanied by a matching spray of flowers. In Japan’s Heian era, such matters of taste were vital. An inelegant poetic reference, slightly slipshod calligraphy, paper of the wrong texture, watered-down ink: any such misstep would kill a budding romance as surely as an insensitive string of emoji would today.10 This ability to exercise judgement in matters of taste enabled Heian women to create new areas of aesthetic enjoyment; in Sei’s case, this included an exploration of the pleasures offered by the cuteness of small children, animals and objects.

世界上第一份可爱事物清单

The world’s first list of cute things

《枕草子》最初可能只是一本笔记本，清在其中记录了诗意的灵感或琐事，以取悦皇后。这或许解释了书中穿插着各种清单，例如“令人心跳加速的事物”和“时间流逝的场合”。这些清单在日本文学中并无先例。11其中，就包括日本文学中最早出现的引发可爱感的物品和场合。

The Pillow Book probably began as a notebook in which Sei recorded poetic inspirations or trifles to entertain her empress. This would account for the various lists sprinkled throughout, such as ‘Things That Make the Heart Beat Faster’ and ‘Occasions When Time Drags By’. These lists had no literary antecedent in Japan.11 And among them is the earliest expression in Japanese literature of items and occasions that prompt the feeling of cuteness.

在清写作的时候，“可爱”（kawaii）这个词还不存在，所以她用了“utsukushi”（美人）这个词。12如今，“可爱”这个词的意思是“美丽的”，但在前现代日本，它表示社会地位较高的人对自己所负责的人怀有的爱慕之情。如今，“可爱”这个词有时也有同样的用法，但现代“可爱”的含义要广泛得多。13

When Sei was writing, the word kawaii didn’t exist, so she used the word utsukushi.12 Today this word means beautiful, but in pre-modern Japan it signalled the feeling of affection that people in a higher social position felt towards those people for whom they were responsible. Today the word kawaii is sometimes used in the same way, but modern kawaii has a much broader meaning.13

作为一名才华横溢的诗人，Sei 能够将这个词的有限含义拓展到令人愉悦且意想不到的境界。她将清单上的所有事物与“可爱”联系起来，而“可爱”20这种常见的感觉尚未受到足够的重视，以至于无法用一个词来描述它的所有表现形式。

As a talented poet, Sei was able to take the limited meaning of this word and expand it in delightful and unexpected directions. She did this by linking all the items on her list to cuteness, 20a common feeling that hadn’t yet received enough attention to warrant a single word describing all of its manifestations.

清少纳言所处的世界，尊贵却又乏味。宫廷女性被要求待在宫廷幽暗的房间里，与世隔绝。除了闲聊风月八卦，几乎无事可做。清少纳言凭借其机智的谈吐赢得了一席之地，而她的主要任务就是款待皇后。我想，她列出的可爱事物清单，本意是为了让皇后一一念出，以此来展现她们身边平凡的日常生活中，也充满了与可爱邂逅的美好。

The world that Sei Shōnagon inhabited was privileged, but also boring. Women of the court were expected to stay inside, cloistered inside dark palace rooms. There was little to do except gossip about love affairs. Sei’s witty conversational skills gained her a position there, and her main task was to entertain the empress. I think her list of cute things was intended to be read aloud, one item at a time, as a way to demonstrate that the everyday, mundane life happening around them was full of delightful encounters with cuteness.

为了实现这一点，Sei 使用了一个普通的词，并将其像宝石一样翻转过来，展现出新的面向。她列表上的每一项都揭示了另一种欣赏可爱的方式。让我们来看看第一行，它只是“在甜瓜上画一个孩子的脸”。在 Sei 的时代，在甜瓜上画脸是一种常见的消遣，尤其是对妇女和儿童而言。14然而，Sei 在这份列表中使用的词utsukushi通常描述男人对妻子和孩子的感情。15从第一​​行开始，Sei 就颠覆了这个词的含义，以表明一幅简单的轮廓画可以在任何人身上引发同样的感觉。今天我们仍然觉得在甜瓜上画一个孩子的脸很可爱，这绝非巧合。这种简化是现代可爱设计的标志，从 Charlie Brown 到 Hello Kitty。我们稍后会回到这个简化的美学原则。

To accomplish this, Sei used an ordinary word and turned it around, like a gemstone, to reveal new facets. Each item on her list reveals another way to appreciate cuteness. Let’s take the first line, which is simply ‘A child’s face drawn on a melon’. Drawing faces on melons was a common pastime in Sei’s day, especially for women and children.14 Yet the word Sei uses in this list, utsukushi, normally described a man’s affection for his wife and children.15 From the first line, Sei upends the meaning of this word to show that this same feeling can be triggered in anyone by a simple outline drawing. The fact that this idea of a child’s face drawn on a melon still feels cute to us today is no coincidence. Such simplification is a hallmark of modern cute designs, from Charlie Brown to Hello Kitty. We’ll return to this aesthetic principle of reduction later.

清单上的下一项涉及宫廷女性的一种常见娱乐活动。她们会捕捉一只小麻雀，并在它的腿上系一根线，这样她们就能把它抱在怀里，看着它的父母喂食。通过将正在喂食的幼鸟称为“utukushi”，Sei再次颠覆了这个词的传统定义，并向观众展示了幼鸟与儿童面部轮廓画之间的联系，这是以前从未有人想到过的。这两种截然不同的事物唤起了相同的感受，而21当时的词语只能部分地捕捉到这种感受。这就是诗歌语言的意义所在。它开启新的体验，让人们以不同的视角看待周围的世界。

The next item on the list concerns a common activity with which court women amused themselves. They would capture a baby sparrow and tie a thread around its leg, so they could keep it close and watch as its parents fed it. By calling a baby bird being fed utsukushi, Sei again upends the usual definition of the word and shows her audience a connection between baby birds and outline drawings of children’s faces that no one had thought of before. These two completely different things evoke the same feeling, which is only partially captured by the word 21available at the time. This is what poetic language is all about. It opens up new experiences and makes people see the world around them in a different light.

这是Sei列表中另一个可爱动物的例子：“漂亮的白色小鸡，羽毛尚未完全长齐，看起来好像衣服太短了；它们大声吱吱叫着，用长腿跟着母鸡走，或者走在母鸡旁边。”用“ utsukushi ”来描述动物家庭，消除了这个词的父权制和等级制内涵，并将其引向了一个新的方向，使Sei的观众能够欣赏自然世界和人类世界之间的联系。

Here is another example of cute animals from Sei’s list: ‘Pretty, white chicks who are still not fully fledged and look as if their clothes are too short for them; cheeping loudly, they follow one on their long legs or walk close to the mother hen.’ Descriptions of animal families as utsukushi removes the patriarchal, hierarchical connotations of this word and bends it in a new direction that enables Sei’s audience to appreciate the connection between the natural and human worlds.

她清单上的许多内容都与人类儿童有关。小孩子穿着长长的礼服走过，自豪地向大人展示在地上找到的小物件，以及他们长袖滑稽可笑，这些都会出现在清单上。大一点的孩子用稚嫩的声音练习大声朗读，或者歪着头仔细观察某物，都显得可爱至极。所有这些瞬间都蕴含着观察孩子们热情洋溢、庄重迷人的表情，以及他们努力模仿成人行为的乐趣。它们也揭示了这些上流社会女性的特权生活，她们无需承担任何养育孩子的繁琐环节。“有人抱起一个漂亮的婴儿，在怀里抱了一会儿，”Sei写道。“当你抚摸他的时候，他会依偎在你的脖子上，然后睡着了。”想必，哭闹的婴儿会被交给仆人，然后迅速被带走。

Many of the items on her list involve human children. Small children make the list when they walk by in long ceremonial robes, when they proudly show a tiny object they found on the ground to an adult, and when their sleeves are comically long. Older children are cute when they practise reading aloud in their childish voices, or tilt their heads to examine something closely. All these moments encompass the joy of watching children’s enthusiasm, their engaging solemnity or their struggle to match adult behaviours. They also reveal the privileged existence of these upper-class women, who didn’t need to perform any of the messy parts of child-rearing. ‘One picks up a pretty baby and holds him for a while in one’s arms,’ Sei writes. ‘While one is fondling him, he clings to one’s neck and then falls asleep.’ Presumably crying babies were handed over to the servants and swiftly taken out of sight.

清单中还包括许多小物件，例如“人偶展示时使用的物品”。平安时代，玩偶和玩偶屋在贵族家庭的女孩中很流行。女儿节（hina matsuri）起源于平安时代，至今日本各地的女孩们仍在庆祝，她们的玩偶穿着与清时代相同的宫廷礼服。但清单上并没有提到玩偶本身，而是着重介绍了22与之配套的微型玩偶屋家具和餐具。这引出了清单中最著名的一句关于小物的文字：“有人捡起漂浮在池塘上的一片小荷叶，仔细端详。不仅是荷叶，还有小小的蜀葵，事实上，所有小东西，都是最可爱的。”

The list also includes many small items, such as ‘The objects used during the Display of Dolls’. Playing with dolls and doll’s houses was popular among girls from noble families in the Heian period. The Doll Festival (hina matsuri), which traces its origins to the Heian era, is celebrated to this day by girls all over Japan, whose dolls wear the same ceremonial court dress as in Sei’s time. But the list doesn’t mention the dolls themselves; rather, it focuses on the miniature doll’s-house furnishings 22and tableware that accompany them. This leads into the most famous line of the list, which concerns small things: ‘One picks up a tiny lotus leaf that is floating on a pond and examines it. Not only the lotus leaves, but little hollyhock flowers, and indeed all small things, are most adorable.’

《枕草子》的可爱事物清单不仅仅是列举了可爱的例子；它构建了一种新的审美，指导了哪些类型的物体和互动可能引发可爱的感觉。清少纳言以此为一种生物现象赋予了文化声音。她的清单经受住了时间的考验，不仅因为它持续受欢迎，也因为她的观察结果始终如一。最近关于可爱的研究表明，可爱仍然与小巧、圆润、光滑的形状以及人们想要放在身边的事物联系在一起，比如动物幼崽。16音乐学家大卫·休伦发现，高音调的声音被认为是可爱的，这可能包括清少纳言描述的鸟儿的鸣叫和孩子大声朗读的声音。17此外，清单的配色方案，包括淡紫色的长袍、粉红色的花朵、乳白色的鸭蛋和天蓝色的瓮，与研究表明如今被认为是“可爱”的色调相同。18

The Pillow Book’s list of adorable things does more than simply give examples of cuteness; it builds a new aesthetic by providing guidelines on what types of objects and interactions may trigger the feeling of cuteness. In this way Sei Shōnagon gives a cultural voice to a biological phenomenon. Her list has stood the test of time not only in its continued popularity, but in the consistency of her observations. Recent research on cuteness shows that it is still associated with small, round and smooth shapes, as well as things that people want to keep close by them, like baby animals.16 Musicologist David Huron found that high-pitched sounds are considered cute, which might include the cheeping birds and the voice of a child reading aloud that Sei describes.17 Furthermore, the list’s colour palette, which includes lavender robes, pink flowers, creamy-white duck eggs and sky-blue urns, comprise the same shades that research shows are considered kawaii today.18

给当今女性的建议

Advice for women today

“结婚生子”——这就是女人幸福的全部吗？说这句台词的漫画人物头大眼小，但她绝不软弱被动，封面插图上她还调皮地吐着舌头。《今天又玩起来了！》是清少纳言人生的漫画版，旨在帮助女性克服日本社会依然普遍存在的性别歧视。19对于那些正在努力寻找自己的人生道路、摆脱传统性别角色的日本女性来说，清少纳言的生活和工作是一种启发。这类改编之所以受欢迎，是因为她的23生活和工作鼓励女性自信地面对逆境，并将生活视为自我发现的旅程。它们向现代读者表明，在日常生活中看到有趣和可爱的事物，是打破将女性角色限制在婚姻和生儿育女的传统性别角色的可行替代方案。20

‘“Getting married and having children” – is this all that makes a woman happy?’ The manga character who speaks this line has a big head, large eyes and a small body, but she’s far from weak and passive, cheekily sticking out her tongue on the cover illustration. Having Fun Again Today! is a manga version of Sei Shōnagon’s life that seeks to help women weather the sexism that is still prevalent in Japanese society.19 For Japanese women who are struggling to find their own path in life and depart from traditional gender roles, the life and work of Sei Shōnagon are an inspiration. Such adaptations are popular because her 23life and work encourage women to face adversity with self-confident aplomb and view life as a voyage of self-discovery. They indicate to modern readers that seeing the funny and cute in everyday life is a viable alternative to traditional gender roles that limit a woman’s role to marriage and children.20

平安时代的日本大体上处于和平时期，上流社会除了在生活的各个方面培养美感和品味外，几乎无事可做。21尽管贵族人数只有几千人，但他们的审美价值观却传遍了全国。22部分原因是女性作家树立的格调成为了标准，后来也被男性所采用。23这就是为什么女性的经历以及她们在诗歌和散文中表达这些经历的方式成为日本艺术价值观发展的核心，这种价值观至今仍占据主导地位。这种文学平等——即拿起纸笔写作时男性和女性处于平等地位的感觉——是平安时代的女作家仍然激励着现代日本女性继续争取完全社会平等的原因之一。

Japan was largely peaceful in the Heian era, leaving the upper class little to do but cultivate beauty and taste in all aspects of life.21 Although the nobility numbered only a few thousand, their aesthetic values spread across the land.22 This happened in part because the tone set by female writers became the standard and was later adopted by men as well.23 This is one way in which women’s experience, and their method of relating it in both verse and prose, became central to the development of Japanese artistic values that continue to hold sway today. This literary parity – the sense that men and women are on equal ground when they take up pen and paper to write – is one reason why the women writers of the Heian period still inspire modern Japanese women in their continuing struggle for full social equality.

此外，追求艺术可以提升自我的理念也在这个时代确立。24现代人对“可爱”的态度也反映了这一理念：在日本，人们相信培养对可爱事物的欣赏能力会对自身生活产生积极的影响。在平安时代，欣赏可爱是治疗无聊的良药。如今，日本人认为可爱是一种力量，可以帮助人们对抗抑郁、焦虑或工作不满带来的不快乐。

Furthermore, the idea that artistic pursuits could lead to self-improvement became established in this era.24 The modern attitude towards kawaii reflects this idea: in Japan, people believe that cultivating the appreciation of cute things has a positive effect on one’s own life. In the Heian court, contemplating cuteness was a cure for boredom. Today, Japanese people cite cuteness as a force that can help to combat unhappiness stemming from depression, anxiety or dissatisfaction at work.

平安宫廷女性创作的文学作品历代流传，广受传诵。现代日本女性敬仰清少纳言，因为她开创了一段充满智慧和才智的文学生涯，并因此受到重视和赞扬。与此同时，她的感性也因其新颖而现代的风格而引发共鸣，尽管她列出的可爱事物清单表达了一种24人类自古以来可能就一直存在的情感。

The literature produced by women in the Heian court has been read and taught through the ages. Modern Japanese women admire Sei Shōnagon because she forged a career in which her wit and wisdom were valued and applauded. At the same time, her sensibility resonates because it seems fresh and modern, even though her list of cute things expresses an 24emotion that humans have probably felt since the beginning of time.

三种艺术价值：小、暂时、愉悦

Three artistic values: small, temporary and delightful

《枕草子》中贯穿始终的作者笔调清晰地展现了一位风趣、聪明，而且最重要的是风趣的女性。日本传统的侘寂文化，即质朴的朴素和淡雅的优雅，与其热情洋溢的卡哇伊文化看似截然不同，但两者之间却比乍看之下更加接近。Sei 的榜单围绕着三项指导原则展开，这些原则反映了日本艺术和艺术根深蒂固的美学理念，也是后来卡哇伊文化发展的关键，从色彩缤纷、活力四射的宝可梦到面无表情、神秘莫测的 Hello Kitty。让我们一一回顾。

The authorial voice that pervades The Pillow Book clearly conveys a woman who is witty, clever and, most of all, fun. Japan’s traditional culture of wabi-sabi, or rustic simplicity and sparse elegance, appears fundamentally separate from its ebullient kawaii culture, but the two are closer than they first appear. Sei’s list is organised around three guiding principles that reflect deep-rooted aesthetics of Japanese art and artistry and were key to the later development of everything kawaii, from colourful, energetic Pokémon to the expressionless and enigmatic Hello Kitty. Let’s look at them one by one.

“一切小物皆可爱，”清少纳言（斜体字为本人所加）写道。然而，在日本，对小巧的喜爱并不仅限于可爱的物品。韩国学者李敖英（O-Young Lee）写了一整本书来探讨日本文化如何重视小物件。他指出，折扇——一项古老的日本发明——是“想象力”的早期例证，他认为这种想象力深深植根于日本文化，这种想象力“力求将事物变得更小，将侏儒理想化，而非巨人”。25当扇子从大而扁平变为小而可折叠时，它们获得了新的价值，成为可以握在手中或收纳在和服袖子里的东西。26李敖英认为，日本人喜欢小物件，因为它们反映了人们对与物品建立更亲密关系的渴望。27在日本，对微型化事物的偏爱随处可见，从传统的盆栽和俳句，到现代的随身听和神奇宝贝——毕竟，神奇宝贝是“口袋妖怪”的简称。Sei 清单上的所有物品——从孩子到幼崽，从鸡蛋到玻璃罐——都小巧而脆弱。

‘All small things are most adorable,’ writes Sei Shōnagon (italics mine). In Japan, however, the attraction to the diminutive is not limited to cute objects. The Korean scholar O-Young Lee wrote an entire book about how Japanese culture values small items. He points to the folding fan – an ancient Japanese invention – as an early example of ‘an imaginative power’ that he believes to be deeply rooted in Japanese culture, one that ‘seeks to make things smaller, that idealizes the dwarf over the giant’.25 When fans went from large and flat to small and folding, they attained a new value as something that could be held in the hand and stored inside the sleeve of a kimono.26 Lee believes that the Japanese enjoy small things because they reflect the desire for a more intimate relation to objects.27 The penchant for miniaturisation appears everywhere in Japan, from traditional bonsai and haiku to the modern Walkman and Pokémon – the last of which, after all, is short for ‘pocket monsters’. All the items on Sei’s list – from children to baby animals, eggs to glass pots – are small and vulnerable.

儿童和二十五动物可爱的外表和滑稽动作之所以令人感到特别心酸，是因为我们知道它们都是暂时的——随着年龄的增长，它们会消失。我们之所以喜欢 Sei 名单上的事物，部分原因就在于我们意识到它们是暂时的，必须在它们消失之前尽情享受。这种对短暂性的偏爱是日本最早的艺术价值观之一。28文学史学家唐纳德·基恩称之为“最具日本特色的审美理想”。29例如，樱花虽然只有短短的几天，但日本到处都种植着观赏樱花树；在落花时节举办派对的习俗始于平安时代，一直延续到今天。

The cute appearance and antics of young children as well as 25animals have a special poignancy because we know they have a temporary nature – they will vanish with maturity. Part of our enjoyment of the things that appear on Sei’s list is due to this awareness that they are temporary and must be enjoyed to the full before they fade away. This preference for transience is among the earliest Japanese artistic values.28 The literary historian Donald Keene called it ‘the most distinctively Japanese aesthetic ideal’.29 Cherry blossoms, for example, bloom for only a few glorious days, yet ornamental cherry trees are planted everywhere in Japan; the custom of holding parties amid the falling blossoms, which began in the Heian era, continues today.

清少纳言坚称她写作是为了娱乐，事实上， 《枕草子》中出现最频繁的形容词——准确地说是 445 次——是okashi。30这个词仍然在使用，但如今它指的是有趣或荒谬的事物。在平安时代，它泛指令人愉快的事物，即“娱乐、吸引、愉悦、取悦和迷惑”的事物。31这是《枕草子》的中心主题，因为分享有趣的东西是清少纳言在宫廷中的重要角色。她已经磨练出对某个物体或瞬间所能产生的愉悦感的感知，以至于她只需描述一个小孩在地上爬行，或者小鸡滑稽的长腿，就能取悦她的观众。

Sei Shōnagon insisted that she wrote for fun, and indeed the adjective that appears most frequently in The Pillow Book – 445 times, to be exact – is okashi.30 This word is still used, but these days it refers to something funny or absurd. In the Heian era it referred broadly to the delightful, that which ‘entertains, intrigues, delights, pleases and beguiles’.31 It is a central motif of The Pillow Book because sharing amusing things was an important aspect of Sei’s role at court. She had honed her sense of the frisson of pleasure that an object or moment could produce to the extent that she could delight her audience simply by describing a small child crawling along the ground, or the comically long legs of baby chicks.

《枕草子》列出的可爱事物描述了一些触发“可爱”感的情境。其中一些源于想要照顾或养育某物的渴望，而另一些则围绕着乐趣和嬉戏的时刻。一些科学家认为，这代表了两种截然不同的“可爱”，并将后者称为“异想天开的可爱”。32我觉得这很有道理——我们想要和可爱的东西玩耍的可能性和想要照顾它的可能性一样大。因此，一个社会对待“玩耍”这一概念的方式可能会影响其艺术和文学作品中“可爱”的呈现。二十六

The Pillow Book’s list of adorable things describes situations that trigger the feeling of cuteness. Some of these stem from the desire to take care of or nurture something, but others are oriented around fun and playful moments. Some scientists believe that these represent two distinct categories of cuteness, and they term the latter ‘whimsical cuteness’.32 This makes sense to me – we’re just as likely to want to play with something cute as we are to take care of it. It follows that the way a society treats the idea of play may influence the appearance of cuteness in its art and literature. 26

日本艺术中的嬉戏动物：嬉戏动物卷轴

Playful animals in Japanese art: the Scroll of Frolicking Animals

如果科学家们认为欣赏可爱是人类大脑的天性，那么我们一直以来就倾向于欣赏孩子们的滑稽动作——或者至少是自己孩子滑稽的动作。当你正要工作时，一群邻居家的孩子在你办公室窗外尖叫，或许不如你家孩子开心大笑时激起同样的反应。但就像上面引用的那首日本传统民歌的歌手一样，我们有时都会羡慕孩子们无忧无虑地玩耍，甚至渴望加入他们。

If the scientists are right in thinking that an appreciation for cuteness is wired into our brains, then we have always been predisposed to enjoy the antics of young children – or at least the antics of our young children. A group of neighbourhood kids screaming outside your office window when you’re trying to work may not provoke the same response as the delighted laugh of one of your own. But like the singer in the traditional Japanese folk song quoted above, we all envy the carefree abandon of children at play at times, and may even yearn to join them.

野生动物——从狮子、老虎到熊——有时会和幼崽一起玩耍。而成年人则将玩耍提升到了一个新的高度。我们的生活充满了各种有趣的消遣。但成年人的玩耍蕴含着一种根本的矛盾。一方面，我们常常告诉自己不要把生活看得太严肃。另一方面，我们又说生活并非全是玩乐。一个社会如何处理这种矛盾，或许可以解释可爱元素是否会出现在其艺术和文学作品中。

Wild animals – from lions and tigers to bears – will sometimes join their cubs in play. Human adults, on the other hand, take play to another level. We fill our lives with amusing distractions. But adult play contains a fundamental tension. On the one hand, we often tell ourselves not to take life too seriously. On the other, we say that life is not all fun and games. How a society deals with this tension may explain whether cuteness appears in its art and literature.

以中世纪的欧洲为例。那里的生活绝非沉闷。恰恰相反，正如荷兰历史学家约翰·赫伊津哈所写：“生活充满了玩乐：人们欢快无拘无束的玩乐，其中充满了异教元素，这些元素失去了神圣的意义，沦为玩笑和滑稽。” 33赫伊津哈之所以特别提到“异教元素”，是因为宗教改变了社会对玩乐的认知，即便没有改变人们参与玩乐的倾向。然而，玩乐依然是异教的，因为基督徒认为它是对二十七上帝的轻浮干扰。艺术旨在表达严肃的宗教主题，这或许可以解释为什么可爱元素在中世纪欧洲的艺术中远不如在日本出现。

Take medieval Europe as an example. Life there was anything but dull. On the contrary, as the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga writes: ‘Life was brimful of play: the joyous and unbuttoned play of the people, full of pagan elements that had lost their sacred significance and been transformed into jesting and buffoonery.’33 Huizinga singles out ‘pagan elements’ because religion had transformed the social perception of play, if not people’s tendency to engage in it. However, play remained pagan because Christians saw it as a frivolous distraction from 27God. Art was meant to express serious, religious themes, which might explain why cuteness appears far less in the art of medieval Europe than it did in Japan.

然而，西方艺术家偶尔也会玩弄一些花样。花费大量时间抄写手稿的僧侣有时会在他们正在创作的书籍的空白处涂鸦。这些旁注包括怪物和像人类一样行动的动物的图像，但它们往往看起来怪诞而奇怪。34不过，其中一些可能被认为是可爱的。在一幅这样的插图中，一只兔子与一只狗决斗。兔子看起来很惊讶，好像它就要从它骑着的长着胡须的人脸蜗牛上掉下来。像这样的旁注将滑稽、古怪和可爱融为一体，但最后一种可爱与其他元素相比显得无关紧要。欧洲艺术家在可爱方面做得并不多。

And yet Western artists did occasionally play around. Monks who spent many hours copying manuscripts sometimes doodled in the margins of the books they were working on. These marginalia include images of monsters and animals acting like humans, but they tend to look grotesque and strange.34 However, a few of them might be considered cute. In one such illustration, a rabbit jousts with a dog. The rabbit looks surprised, as if he’s about to fall off the snail with a bearded human face that he’s riding into combat. Marginalia like this mix the funny, the odd and the cute all together, but the last is peripheral to the others. European artists simply didn’t do much with cuteness.

清少纳言将平安宫廷日常生活中的趣事变成了高雅艺术。但玩乐在日本文化中的重要性可能远比《枕草子》中的表达更为深刻。历史学家 Michal Daliot-Bul 指出，清少纳言参与形成的女性文学传统将笑声和一切有趣的事物理想化，但她也表示，这种趋势受到“视笑声为精神赋能”的宗教传统的影响。35说一群与世隔绝的无聊贵族渴望互相取悦，认为他们可以用笑声来提升自己的灵魂，这未免有些牵强，但我们姑且假设 Daliot-Bul 是对的。毕竟，在任何文化中，要让可爱出现在艺术中，都必须在某种程度上受到重视。日本文化中“卡哇伊”的出现是否与嬉戏玩乐与神的力量有关？

Sei Shōnagon took the amusing minutiae of everyday life in the Heian court and turned it into high art. But the importance of play in Japanese culture may run much deeper than its expression in The Pillow Book. The historian Michal Daliot-Bul notes that the female literary tradition that Sei helped to form idealises laughter and everything amusing, but she also says that this trend was informed by a religious tradition that ‘sees laughter as spiritually empowering’.35 It’s quite a leap to say that a cloistered group of bored nobles desperate to amuse each other thought they could elevate their souls with laughter, but let’s suppose that Daliot-Bul is right. After all, for cuteness to emerge in the arts in any culture, it has to be taken seriously on some level. Could the appearance of kawaii in Japanese culture be connected to the association of the playful and amusing with the power of the gods?

文学学者唐纳德·基恩观察到，到了十世纪，平安时代的宫廷社会已将唯美主义提升到近乎宗教的程度。36诗歌、时尚和爱情在他们的世界中至关重要。然而，早在《枕草 子》成书之前，日本宗教就已将玩乐的元素融入其核心。37日本本土宗教神道教充满了通过歌舞和音乐娱乐来安抚复仇之神的故事。“戏神”（kami asobi），正如人们所知，是一种精心策划的讨好强大神灵的策略。38自古以来，日本人就相信取悦神灵会使其与自己更加亲近，从而建立一种对他们有利的亲密关系。简而言之，笑声既能吸引神灵，又能讨好他们。通过这种方式，宗教崇拜被认为既有趣又能赋予精神力量。39二十八

The literary scholar Donald Keene observes that by the tenth century Heian court society had elevated aestheticism to something close to a religion.36 Poetry, fashion and love affairs were of vital importance in their world. Long before The Pillow 28Book was written, however, Japanese religion had integrated playful elements into its core.37 Shinto, the indigenous Japanese religion, is full of stories of vengeful gods being appeased through singing, dancing and musical entertainment. ‘Playing with the gods’ (kami asobi), as this was known, comprised a deliberate strategy to curry favour with powerful deities.38 From ancient times, Japanese believed that entertaining a deity would bring it closer to them, forging an intimate relationship that would work to their advantage. Put simply, laughter both attracted the gods and curried their favour. In this way religious worship was regarded as simultaneously amusing and spiritually empowering.39

宗教与娱乐之间的历史渊源至今犹存；日本各地的神社和寺庙仍然举办热闹的节日庆典，人们抬着被称为“神轿”的微型神社在街上游行。我东京家附近的“鸽子森林”神社每年都会举办几场这样的活动，届时志愿者神轿抬着的吟唱声会在我的街区回荡。这一习俗让人想起我们与可爱事物的关系，正如入户野宏的研究表明，可爱的东西会吸引我们靠近，以便我们与它们玩耍。在日本，神社和寺庙利用可爱来吸引信徒的情况相当普遍。有些神社和寺庙出售带有Hello Kitty或其他可爱人物形象的护身符。40东京的豪德寺装饰着数千只招财猫，这些招财猫是由感激的祈求者捐赠的，而“鸽子森林”神社则在每年新年分发折成纸鸽的福气。41

This historical connection between religion and fun exists to this day; shrines and temples still host raucous festivals all over Japan in which miniature shrines called mikoshi are paraded through the streets. The ‘Pigeon Forest’ shrine near my home in Tokyo mounts several of these each year, when the rhythmic chants of volunteer shrine-bearers echo through my neighbourhood. This custom recalls our relationship with cute things, which – as Hiroshi Nittono’s research suggests – beckon us closer in order that we play with them. In Japan it’s fairly common for shrines and temples to use cuteness as a way of attracting worshippers. Some sell protective amulets that depict Hello Kitty, or other cute characters of their own invention.40 Gotokuji Temple in Tokyo is adorned with thousands of beckoning cat figures that have been donated by grateful supplicants, while the Pigeon Forest shrine distributes fortunes folded into an origami pigeon each New Year.41

猫和鸽子似乎是一种奇怪的生物，与神社和寺庙联系在一起，但在日本民间信仰中，动物经常被神骑乘，作为神的信使出现，或仅仅表示神的存在。42当我们转向现存最古老的日本视觉艺术作品之一时，我们应该记住这一点，这件作品以现代人的眼光来看很可爱：二十九十二世纪的官方“国宝”，被称为嬉戏动物卷轴。

Cats and pigeons might seem strange creatures to be associated with shrines and temples, but in Japanese folk belief animals are frequently ridden by gods, appear as their messengers or just signal their presence.42 We should keep this in mind as we turn to one of the oldest-surviving Japanese works of visual art that strikes the modern eye as cute: the 29twelfth-century official ‘national treasure’ known as the Scroll of Frolicking Animals.

图 1.1：东京豪德寺的招财猫雕像。

Fig. 1.1: Beckoning cat figures at Gotokuji Temple, Tokyo.

图 1.2：东京神社的折纸鸽子运势。三十

Fig. 1.2: Origami pigeon fortunes at a Tokyo shrine. 30

世界上最古老的动漫？

The world’s oldest anime?

卷轴中最著名的一幕以一只奔跑的猴子开始，它头上的宽边帽被风吹落，用一根绳子系在脖子上。猴子一边逃跑，一边回头看着几只愤怒的青蛙和兔子，它们正向它挥舞着棍子。展开卷轴，犯罪现场逐渐显露出来：一只青蛙昏迷不醒地躺在地上，四肢张开。关切的兔子弯下腰照料它；再往前走，一只戴着帽子的猫和一群穿着贵族服饰的狐狸转过身来目瞪口呆，被青蛙的困境和猴子的逃跑逗乐了。最后，在最左边，也就是行动开始的地方，出现了两只跳舞的青蛙。其中一只戴着倒扣的莲花帽，挥舞着扇子和围巾，为一群高兴的动物表演了一出名为“猴子音乐剧”（sarugaku）的​​滑稽歌舞。

The most famous scene in the scroll begins with a running monkey, a broad-brimmed hat blown off his head by the wind and held around his neck by a string. The monkey looks over his shoulder with a delighted grin at several outraged frogs and rabbits waving sticks at him as he makes his escape. Unrolling the scroll further reveals the scene of the crime: a frog is lying on the ground unconscious, his arms and legs splayed. Solicitous rabbits bend over to tend him; further along, a cat in a hat and a family of foxes in aristocratic dress have turned to gawk, amused by the frog’s plight and the monkey’s flight. Finally, at the far left where the action began, two dancing frogs appear. One wears an upside-down lotus pad as a hat as they wave fans and scarves, performing a comic song and dance called the ‘monkey musical’ (sarugaku) to a crowd of delighted animals.

《鸟兽戏画》是日本最受欢迎的艺术作品之一，也是平安时代的杰作。该卷轴于 1899 年被正式注册为古代国宝，是使用简短笔触勾勒人物轮廓（略写法）的早期范例，这种技巧最终形成了现代漫画。43这幅画长约 13 码，包含各种栩栩如生的拟人化动物场景：主要有猴子、兔子和青蛙，但也有老鼠、鹿和狐狸。场景发生在田野、山坡和溪流中，动物们装扮成不同阶层的男人和女人，有宫廷贵族、佛教僧侣到劳工。

One of the most beloved works of art in Japan, the Scroll of Frolicking Animals (Chōjū giga) is another Heian-era masterpiece. Officially registered as an ancient national treasure in 1899, the scroll is an early example of the technique of outlining characters using brief brushstrokes (ryakugashiki) that would eventually lead to modern manga.43 Nearly thirteen yards long, it contains various lively scenes of anthropomorphised animals: mainly monkeys, rabbits and frogs, but also mice, deer and foxes. The scenes take place in a landscape of fields, hillsides and streams, with the animals dressed as men and women of various classes, from court nobles and Buddhist monks to labourers.

平安时代，以及之后的时代，神社和寺庙的祭祀活动提供了从魔术到杂耍等多种形式的娱乐活动。哑剧通常内容粗俗，31由戴着面具的演员表演，观众热情参与。卷轴中描绘的猴子音乐剧尤其受欢迎。当时一位评论员写道，这种滑稽的表演让观众笑得“肚子都撑破了”。猴子音乐剧是诸如庄严的能剧和滑稽的狂言等主流传统艺术的前身，这两种艺术至今仍在上演。猴子音乐剧包括由戴着青蛙面具或帽子的歌手和舞者表演的淫秽哑剧。这幅卷轴以青蛙为表演者，对猴子音乐剧进行了滑稽的演绎。44

Festivals at shrines and temples in the Heian era, as in later times, offered multiple forms of entertainment, from magic to juggling. Pantomimes, which were often obscene, 31were performed by masked actors with enthusiastic participation from the audience. The monkey musical depicted in the scroll was a particular favourite. A commentator at the time wrote that such comic routines caused audiences to laugh hard enough ‘to burst the stomach’. An antecedent of mainstay traditional arts like the stately noh and comic kyōgen dances, both still performed to this day, monkey musicals included risqué pantomime performed by singers and dancers wearing frog masks or hats. The scroll offers a droll take on the monkey musical by depicting frogs as its performers.44

《百兽嬉闹图》的画面没有文字说明，但从右向左展开，画面逐渐展开，各种迷人的场景如同动画电影的分镜般层层递进。除了猴子的音乐场景外，还有青蛙和兔子的相扑比赛，观众哄堂大笑；青蛙和兔子的射箭比赛，狐狸负责计分；以及猴子像骑师一样骑着鹿的“赛马”。

There is no text to accompany the images in the Scroll of Frolicking Animals, but unrolling the scroll from right to left gradually reveals the action, as various charming scenes play out like the storyboard for an animated film. In addition to the monkey musical scene, there is a sumo match between a frog and a rabbit, while a watching crowd laughs uproariously; an archery contest between frogs and rabbits, with a fox keeping score; and a ‘horse race’ in which monkeys ride deer like jockeys.

长期以来，这幅卷轴一直被认为对漫画和动画的起源产生了深远的影响，原因之一在于其描绘的动感活力。动物的情感通过生动的面部表情、手势和眼神交流清晰地传达出来。45除了让我们了解情节之外，这些相互的凝视也展现了每只动物的个性，使场景更具个性。当我们凝视着卷轴上嬉戏的动物时，它们开心的笑容和笑声也会让我们脸上绽放笑容。

The scroll has long been cited as influential to the origin of both manga and anime, and one reason is the dynamic energy of its depictions. The animals’ emotions are clearly conveyed through vivid facial expressions, gestures and eye contact.45 In addition to cluing us in on the action, these reciprocal gazes personalise the scene by showing us the individual character of each animal. As we peer at the frolicking animals on the scroll, their delighted grins and laughter bring a smile to our faces as well.

《嬉戏动物图》的简洁轮廓线也运用了“减法”——另一种根深蒂固的日本传统美学，是现代“卡哇伊”的关键因素。考虑到它所描绘的大量狂热活动，这幅卷轴的简洁性令人叹为观止；风景几乎不露痕迹，人物也用简洁的笔触描绘。运用克制来达到预期效果是三十二禅宗哲学的标志，这种哲学体现在方方面面，从龙安寺的极简主义假山庭园到茶道的简朴之美。46

The simple outline drawings of the Scroll of Frolicking Animals also employ reduction – another traditional Japanese aesthetic with deep roots that is a key factor in modern kawaii. The simplicity of the scroll’s execution is striking, considering the amount of frenetic activity it depicts; the landscape is barely shown, and the characters are drawn with economical strokes. Employing restraint to achieve a desired effect is a hallmark of 32Zen philosophy that appears in everything from the minimalist rock garden at Ryōanji Temple to the sparse beauty of the tea ceremony.46

绘制这幅卷轴的艺术家们创造了一种视觉简写，强化了他们想要吸引注意力的特征。李敖英在描述这种简化原则时写道：“一方面是缩写，另一方面是强调。” 47《枕草子》通过令人难以置信的简洁语言实现了这种强调，而《嬉戏动物卷轴》则通过精心淡化的视觉细节实现了这种强调。简化是现代卡哇伊设计的基石——Hello Kitty 的极简主义就是一个例证——但它的根源可以追溯到900年前这些单色的嬉戏动物场景，它们看起来仿佛是昨天才画出来的。

The artists who painted the scroll created a visual shorthand that intensifies the features to which they wished to draw attention. Describing this principle of reduction, O-Young Lee writes: ‘On one hand there is abbreviation, on the other, emphasis.’47 While The Pillow Book accomplishes this emphasis through an incredible economy of language, the Scroll of Frolicking Animals does so with carefully attenuated visual detail. Reduction is a keystone of modern kawaii design – the minimalism of Hello Kitty is a case in point – but its roots go back 900 years to these monochrome scenes of playful animals that look as if they were painted yesterday.

由于日本文化很大一部分源自中国，因此值得注意的是，这些早期的“卡哇伊”元素似乎并无任何中国先例。例如，中国和韩国都没有类似《枕草子》中提到的日本女儿节。48而《百兽图》中的拟人化动物也并非受中国艺术传统的启发。49

Because so much of Japanese culture originated in China, it is important to note that these early examples of proto-kawaii don’t seem to have had any Chinese antecedents. For example, neither China nor Korea has anything like the Japanese Doll Festival mentioned in The Pillow Book.48 And the anthropomorphic animals of the Scroll of Frolicking Animals weren’t inspired by the Chinese artistic tradition.49

更重要的是，《枕草子》和《百兽图》表明，日本的“卡哇伊”并非纯粹的现代现象。事实上，它与各种传统美学息息相关——对小巧的偏爱、对短暂易逝之物的珍视，以及对简约的追求——这些美学理念贯穿于日本文化的方方面面。《枕草子》的作者笔下的人物生活在皇后和宫女们与世隔绝的环境中。然而，在平安皇宫的围墙之外，各个社会阶层的男女都与清少纳言一样，对趣味盎然的事物有着同样的热爱。

More importantly, The Pillow Book and the Scroll of Frolicking Animals demonstrate that Japanese kawaii is not a completely modern phenomenon. It is, in fact, connected to various traditional aesthetics – a preference for smallness, the treasuring of the transient and perishable and an enthusiasm for simplicity – that appear across a broad swathe of Japanese culture. The author of The Pillow Book wrote within the cloistered world of the empress and her ladies-in-waiting. Beyond the walls of the Heian imperial palace, however, men and woman of all social classes shared Sei Shōnagon’s penchant for the amusing and the playful.

学者们长期以来一直在寻找创作《百兽嬉闹图》的艺术家，或者至少是其33杰出的赞助人。但还有另一种可能性。12世纪的日本，歌舞、体育和节日盛行，深受各阶层人士的喜爱。或许这幅画作是由来自其所描绘社群的匿名工匠绘制的。

Scholars have long sought to identify the artists responsible for painting the Scroll of Frolicking Animals, or at least their 33illustrious patron. But there is another possibility. Twelfth-century Japan saw a flourishing of songs, dances, sports and festivals popular with people of all social classes. Perhaps the scroll was painted by anonymous artisans who came from the community it depicts.

著名艺术家的工作室往往由来自下层阶级的工匠组成；一些才华横溢的学徒可能会匆匆忙忙地创作这幅画卷，以取悦他们的朋友。由于动物与神灵联系在一起，它们的出现可以被视为祈求神灵庇佑。或者，考虑到它们邪恶的滑稽动作，这幅画卷也可以被解读为对宗教仪式的滑稽戏仿，而这些仪式往往是为了巩固上层阶级的地位。如果这幅著名的画卷是对世俗权威的滑稽戏仿，那么用可爱的动物代替人物就创造了一种模糊性，或许有助于让艺术家们避免麻烦。50

The workshops of famous artists tended to be staffed by artisans from the lower classes; a few talented apprentices may have dashed off the scroll to delight their friends. Since animals are associated with the gods, their presence could be seen as an appeal for divine favour. Or, considering their devilish antics, the scroll could be read as a slapstick send-up of religious rites that tended to cement the position of the upper class. If the famous scroll was a comic send-up of the secular authorities, then having cute animals stand in for people created an ambiguity that might have proved useful in keeping the artists out of trouble.50

在《百兽嬉图》创作的大约同一时期，这类画卷的数量骤然暴增。51如果这些画卷是为平民百姓而作 — — 甚至可能是由平民百姓创作的 — — 那么它们的内容就必然反映了普遍的品味。优雅的贵族清少纳言为贵族观众创作了《枕草子》 。然而，现代的“卡哇伊”则更像是一种自下而上的美学。52与由评论家评判、由鉴赏家欣赏的美术作品不同，《百兽嬉图》可能是普通人的品味如何激发出经久不衰的艺术作品的一个早期例子。

There was an abrupt explosion in the number of picture scrolls at around the same time that the Scroll of Frolicking Animals was painted.51 If they were meant for an audience of commoners – and perhaps even produced by them – it follows that their content would reflect universal tastes. The elegant aristocrat Sei Shōnagon wrote The Pillow Book for a noble audience. Modern kawaii, however, is more of a bottom-up aesthetic.52 Unlike fine art, which is judged by critics and appreciated by connoisseurs, the Scroll of Frolicking Animals may be an early example of how the tastes of ordinary people can inspire art that lasts the ages.

这幅卷轴的影响力至今仍持续，因为其中的图案至今仍是日本经久不衰的设计主题。在大学图书馆用电脑工作时，我欣喜地看到卷轴上那只淘气的猴子正从鼠标垫上朝我咧嘴笑着。几年前，我在原宿的一家古董店里买到了一块绣着这幅卷轴场景的和服布料。比起《枕草子》，《百兽嬉闹图》在日本人心中的地位更加牢固。三十四

The influence of the scroll has certainly lasted, for images from it remain a perennially popular design motif in Japan. While working on a computer in a university library, I was delighted to see the mischievous monkey from the scroll grinning up at me from the mouse mat. In a Harajuku antique shop a few years ago, I bought a scrap of kimono fabric that was embroidered with scenes from the scroll. Even more than 34The Pillow Book, the Scroll of Frolicking Animals has cemented its place in the hearts of Japanese people.

在清少纳言的时代，女性为了美貌会剃掉眉毛，涂黑牙齿。如今已无人这样做，就像西方男性不再佩戴扑粉假发一样。如果审美标准会随着时间和地点的变化而变化，那么为什么我们仍然能在一千年前的日本艺术中发现“可爱”的痕迹呢？原因之一可能是，“可爱”的生物学基础根深蒂固，比其他审美观念更加稳定。但这并非全部原因，因为某种事物是否被视为“可爱”，显然与观看者的眼光息息相关。例如，在卷轴画中，狐狸与兔子、青蛙和猴子一起嬉戏，但在世界其他地方，许多人却将它们视为害虫。

In Sei Shōnagon’s day, women shaved their eyebrows and blackened their teeth to look more beautiful. No one does that today, just as men in the West have given up on powdered wigs. If standards of beauty change, depending on the time and place, then why do we still find cuteness in Japanese art from a thousand years ago? One reason could be that the biological basis of cuteness is hard-wired in a way that makes it more stable than other aesthetics. Yet this can’t be the whole answer, because whether something is seen as cute clearly has some connection with the eye of the beholder. Foxes, for example, gambol alongside rabbits, frogs and monkeys in the scroll, but elsewhere in the world many people consider them to be mere pests.

像狐狸这样的动物，其形象比家养的小狗小猫更加矛盾，或许正是探究可爱之根源于自然而非文化的起点。怎样才能让狐狸在所有人眼中都变得可爱呢？

An animal like the fox, which has a more ambivalent image than a domesticated puppy or kitten, may be exactly the place to start an investigation into the roots of cuteness in nature, as opposed to culture. What would it take to make foxes cute to everyone?

三十五

2

2

野生与驯服的边界

The Border between Wild and Tame

狐狸说：“你要对你驯服的东西永远负责。”—— 《小王子》，安东尼·德·圣埃克苏佩里

‘You become forever responsible for what you have tamed,’ said the fox.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

《枕草子》和《动物嬉闹图》赋予动物人类的特征，使它们显得可爱。正如我们所见，有人认为，“可爱”的概念是作为一种生物触发因素而进化而来的，目的是确保儿童得到关爱和关注；如果真是这样，拟人化或许也能让我们对其他生物感受到这种温暖。然而，这并非动物变得可爱的唯一方式。例如，猫和狗可能随着时间的推移变得越来越可爱，因为我们——无论有意还是无意——会选择三十六每一窝中最可爱的动物来繁衍下一代。无论如何，可爱似乎是我们为了满足自身需求而强加于动物身上的。

The Pillow Book and the Scroll of Frolicking Animals make animals seem cute by giving them human traits. As we have seen, it has been argued that the idea of cuteness evolved as a biological trigger to help ensure that children receive care and attention; if this was the case, anthropomorphising might be a way to make us feel this warmth for other creatures as well. However, this is not the only way in which animals become cute. Cats and dogs, for instance, probably became cuter over time as we chose – whether consciously or unconsciously – the most adorable of 36each litter to breed the next generation. Either way, cuteness seems to be something we have imposed on animals for our own satisfaction.

至少当我开始研究这个话题时，我是这样想的。但随着深入研究，我意识到动物的可爱其实有很多层次。有一种动物尤其让我有了新的认识：狐狸。自古以来，人类与狐狸之间一直有着特殊的联系；研究我们与狐狸的关系，让我彻底重新审视了自己对动物可爱的假设。

At least this was what I thought when I started researching this topic. But as I dug deeper, I realised there are many layers to animal cuteness. One animal in particular led me towards this new understanding: the fox. There’s been a special link between people and foxes throughout the ages; studying our relationship with them caused me to completely reassess my assumptions about animal cuteness.

抵达日本后不久，我在京都的一家古董店里发现了一块旧和服布料。图案是一群狐狸头的婚礼队伍。人狐混合身形并不罕见，因为狐狸在日本文化中与变身有关。人们认为狐狸会附身于人，使人做出各种恶作剧，比如捉弄傲慢的武士和贪婪的商人。1但狐狸也有积极的一面。许多神道教神社都供奉稻荷神，即掌管稻米、清酒、茶和狐狸的神。稻荷神社的神社里供奉着狐狸雕像，许多雕像的脖子上都系着可爱的小红围兜，供奉者以此表示敬意。

Soon after arriving in Japan I came across a scrap of old kimono fabric at an antiques store in Kyoto. The design features a wedding procession of people with the heads of foxes. The blend of human and fox bodies is not unusual, because foxes are associated with transformation in Japanese culture. They are thought to possess people who proceed to get into all kinds of mischief, such as playing tricks on haughty samurai and greedy merchants.1 But there is also a positive side to the fox. Many Shinto shrines are dedicated to Inari, the god of rice, sake, tea – and foxes. Inari shrines feature statues of foxes on their grounds, many with cute little red bibs tied to their necks by worshippers as a sign of respect.

在西方文化中，狐狸也与狡猾、狡猾的行为联系在一起。例如，在伊索公元前一世纪的寓言《狐狸和乌鸦》中，一只狐狸骗乌鸦从一块奶酪里抢走了它。这个故事让我想起，英文单词“cute”（“acute”的缩写）仍然包含狡猾的含义。

Foxes in Western culture are likewise associated with sly, cunning behaviour. In Aesop’s first-century bce fable ‘The Fox and the Crow’, for example, a fox tricks the bird out of a piece of cheese. This story reminds me that the English word ‘cute’ – a shortened form of ‘acute’ – still contains the meaning of cunning.

狐狸与人类的关系源远流长。已知最古老的墓葬中，一只狗与主人同葬于12000年前，位于现今以色列北部，一位纳图夫人与一只小狗同葬。然而，在这处遗址附近，一座几千年前的墓地里，却埋葬着最早的狐人三十七合葬墓。2狐狸对这些古代民族的意义或许永远无人知晓，但它们对人类的行为——好奇又带着羞怯——可能与狗在被驯化之前的行为相似。

The relationship between foxes and people stretches way back in time. The oldest known burial in which a dog lies together in the grave with its owner was 12,000 years ago in present-day northern Israel, where a Natufian woman was buried with a puppy. Yet near this site, in a graveyard from several thousand years earlier, lies the earliest fox–human 37burial.2 The significance of foxes to these ancient peoples may never be known, but their behaviour towards humans – curiosity mixed with shyness – may have been similar to the behaviour of dogs before they were domesticated.

图 2.1：描绘狐狸婚礼的古董和服。

Fig. 2.1: Antique kimono showing a fox wedding.

有时，人类与狐狸之间的联系可能超越了象征意义。在现今土耳其的新石器时代早期哥贝克力石阵遗址，狐狸雕刻是柱子上常见的图案。3其中一尊柱子上雕刻着一只狐狸，蜷缩在一位男士的臂弯里。它可能从出生起就被人工饲养，习惯了与人类相处，也可能曾经有人尝试驯养这些动物，但最终失败了。4

At times the connection between humans and foxes may have gone beyond the symbolic. At the early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe site in present-day Turkey, carvings of foxes are a common motif on pillars.3 One of them shows a fox in the crook of a man’s arm. It might have been hand-raised from birth and was used to being around people, or there may have been an attempt to domesticate these animals, which ultimately failed.4

即使在今天，狐狸也经常潜伏在人类居住地的边缘，只有当它们靠近时才会迅速躲开。这种好奇与羞怯的结合或许是三十八世界各地关于狐狸的众多民间故事的灵感来源。“它们在做什么？”人们或许会好奇。“它们懂什么？”但还有另一个因素在起作用：狐狸面部“表情”那看似可爱的表情，让人觉得它们仿佛在微笑。狐狸的面孔吸引着我们，但它的行为却未必。狐狸所引发的矛盾心理，或许是人们将它们视为潜在朋友而非野生动物的原因。为了进一步探索人类与这些生物之间的联系，我决定前往藏王狐狸村，这是位于日本北部山腰的一个旅游景点，被称为“地球上最可爱的地方”。

Even today, foxes often lurk around the edges of human settlements, only to dart away when approached. This combination of curiosity and shyness may have inspired the many 38folktales about foxes around the world. ‘What are they doing?’ people may have wondered. ‘What do they know?’ But there is another factor at work: the apparent cuteness of the fox’s facial ‘expression’, which makes it seem as if they are smiling. The fox’s face appeals to us, while its behaviour may not. The ambivalence that foxes engender may have caused people to see them as a potential friend rather than a wild animal. To further explore the human bond with these creatures, I decided to visit Zaō Fox Village, a tourist attraction on the side of a mountain in northern Japan that has been dubbed ‘the cutest place on Earth’.

狐狸村

The Fox Village

怀抱小狐狸本应是我藏王狐狸村之旅的亮点，但我却大失所望。我以为这只小狐狸会像小猫一样和我玩耍，甚至会盯着我的眼睛，舔我的手，像小狗一样兴奋地扭动身体。结果它只是坐在那里，等着被放下，好跑回兄弟姐妹身边。虽然它的行为令人失望，但它的外表却一点也不令人失望。那么小巧，毛茸茸的！耳朵那么大！坐在我周围的其他人显然和我一样兴奋。我们围坐在椅子上，每个人都穿着亮绿色的塑料斗篷，以防动物的野味沾到衣服上。“卡哇伊！ ”和“可爱！”的叫喊声，以及不绝于耳的咕咕声，表明大家被它的可爱所征服，我不禁笑了。

Holding a baby fox in my arms should have been the highlight of my visit to Zaō Fox Village, but I was disappointed. I expected the cub to play with me as a kitten would, or even gaze into my eyes, lick my hand and wriggle in excitement like a puppy. Instead it just sat there and waited to be put down, so that it could run back to its siblings. But even though its behaviour was a letdown, its appearance was anything but. So small and fluffy! Such big ears! The other people sitting around me were clearly as excited as I was. We were gathered in a circle of chairs and all wore bright-green plastic ponchos, to keep the animals’ gamey smell off our clothes. Cries of ‘Kawaii!’ and ‘Cute!’, along with an abundance of cooing, indicated that the group was overwhelmed by cuteness, and I couldn’t help smiling.

然而，狐狸却没有分享这种快乐的集体体验。当中心的工作人员用我的手机拍照时，这只小狐狸闻了闻我的斗篷，然后凝视着远方。很明显，我受到了包容，而不是爱护——考虑到村里的狐狸是野生动物，而不是宠物，这或许并不奇怪。三十九

However, this happy communal experience was not shared by the fox itself. As the staff from the centre took photos with my mobile phone, the fox cub sniffed my poncho before staring into the distance. It was clear that I was being tolerated rather than loved – perhaps not surprising, considering that the foxes at the village are wild animals rather than pets. 39

藏王狐狸村于1990年开放，最初从日本最北端的北海道引进了一批狐狸。如今，这里拥有一百多只狐狸，它们在一个占地近2000平方码的露天保护区里自由漫步。在幼崽的围栏外，成年狐狸四处游荡，奔跑、挖洞、睡觉，发出令人咋舌的噪音。但藏王狐狸村与其说是一个动物保护区，不如说更像是一个旅游景点。

Zaō Fox Village opened in 1990 with a population of foxes brought from Hokkaido in the far north of Japan; it now has more than a hundred foxes that roam freely in an open-air reserve covering nearly 2,000 square yards. Outside the fenced enclosure that contains the cubs, the adults roam about, running, digging, sleeping and making a surprising amount of noise. But Zaō Fox Village is more tourist attraction than animal sanctuary.

村庄全年无休，狐狸们已经习惯了人类的存在——但这并不意味着它们温顺。我去中心是为了探究人类与那些习惯了人类但仍然野生的动物之间的关系。虽然有些人认为狐狸是害虫，但也有人觉得它们很可爱；它们的尾巴毛茸茸的，很吸引人，厚厚的皮毛让它们的脸显得更宽（似乎遮住了胖乎乎的脸颊），而且它们经常面带微笑。但我好奇这种看法会如何影响我与它们的关系。我可以在狐狸之间行走而不会打扰它们，但我感觉自己离它们有多近呢？

The village is open every day of the year, so the foxes are used to the presence of human beings – but this does not mean they are tame. I went to the centre to investigate the connection between humans and animals that are habituated to people, but still wild. Although some people think of foxes as pests, others see them as cute; their tails are appealingly bushy, thick fur makes their faces appear wider (seeming to hide chubby cheeks) and they often seem to be smiling. But I wondered how this perception would affect my relationship with them. I could walk among the foxes without disturbing them, but how close to them would I feel?

我们关押狐狸幼崽的木甲板的一端，有一扇高高的铁丝网大门，上面挂满了警示牌：这是狐狸保护区的入口。大多数警示牌上都画着可爱的男孩女孩，她们长着狐狸头，与狐狸做出着被禁止的行为。这些警示牌以这种方式暗示，进入围栏会让你不知何故成为一只狐狸——成为它们世界的一部分，却又不适应它们的礼仪和习俗。

At one end of the wooden deck where we were holding the fox cubs was a high gate of chicken wire festooned with warning signs: the entrance to the fox sanctuary. Most of the signs are illustrated with cute figures of boys and girls with fox heads engaging in prohibited behaviour with the animals. In this way the signs suggest that entering the enclosure will somehow make you a fox – part of their world, yet unaccustomed to their manners and mores.

大门通向一片开阔的山坡，狐狸们在这里自由漫步。它们很多都在睡觉——毕竟它们是夜行动物——但也有一些在奔跑、挖洞，互相追逐时发出刺耳的尖叫声。

The gate opens onto a spacious hillside where the foxes are free to roam wherever they please. Many of them are sleeping – they are nocturnal, after all – but others run, dig and screech loudly as they interact with one another.

狐狸基本上不会理会遵守规则的人类游客。由于它们可能会咬人，所以最重要的规则之一就是不要向它们伸出手。我不得不不断克制住40伸出手的冲动；刚刚在一群热爱狐狸的游客中抱住了一只可爱的小狐狸幼崽，我本能地想和这些小动物交朋友。我把双手插进口袋，手指碰到了买的塑料袋装饲料颗粒。“不要挤压饲料袋”是另一条规则；狐狸很聪明，知道沙沙声代表什么，会跳起来咬食物。遵守这条规则也很难。周围都是可爱的小动物，我发现自己很想捏捏什么东西。

The foxes basically ignore human visitors who obey the rules. Since they may bite, one of the most important rules is not to hold out your hand to them. I had to constantly fight 40the impulse to do so; having just cuddled a cute little fox cub in a group of fox-loving fellow visitors, I instinctively wanted to make friends with these creatures. I stuck both hands in my pockets, where my fingers encountered the plastic packets of food pellets I’d bought. ‘Don’t squeeze the food packs’ is another rule; the foxes are smart enough to know what the crinkling sound signifies and will leap up to bite the food. It was hard to obey this regulation as well. Surrounded by so much cuteness, I found myself wanting to squeeze something.

在村子里漫步时，我注意到狐狸总是互相撕咬。在用栅栏围起来的喂食台上，我可以随心所欲地揉搓食物包，然后把里面的食物扔出去，看着这些动物为了食物争吵不休，发出尖叫声。我越来越明白，狐狸虽然看起来很可爱，但它们的行为可不是那样的。

Wandering through the village, I noticed that foxes bite and snap at each other all the time. At the fenced-off feeding platform I could crinkle the packets of food to my heart’s content, before throwing the contents and watching the animals squeal as they fought over the bounty. It was becoming even clearer to me that the foxes may look cute, but they don’t act that way.

来到中心的人类游客们往往会像对待宠物一样接近狐狸。我看到的每个人都面带微笑，缓缓走来，渴望尽可能多地与这些动物接触。我一直希望狐狸能像狗或猫一样接近我，但这并没有发生。就像我腿上的狐狸幼崽一样，成年狐狸对我们置之不理。

Human visitors to the centre tend to approach the foxes as if they’re pets. Everyone I saw was walking slowly with smiling, open faces, keen for as much contact with the animals as possible. I kept hoping a fox would approach me as a dog or cat might, but this didn’t happen. Like the fox cub on my lap, the adult foxes ignored us.

许多来藏王狐狸村拍摄的YouTube用户都对狐狸的冷漠感到不满，但他们找到了一个让视频更有趣的解决方案：他们打破了大门上的所有规则。毕竟，如果狐狸以为有人会喂食，它们就会靠近人，它们会抓住机会偷东西跑掉，或者偷偷靠近咬不知情的游客。YouTube上充斥着人们违反规则引诱狐狸靠近的视频，这样他们就能得出结论，藏王狐狸村的狐狸不仅长得可爱，行为也可爱。“它们就像猫和狗的杂交品种”是YouTube用户常说的一句话，但我并不认同。5

The many YouTubers who come to film Zaō Fox Village are frustrated by the foxes’ indifference, but they have found a solution that makes for more interesting videos: they break all the rules posted on the gate. After all, the foxes will approach people if they think they will be fed, sensing the opportunity to run off with something or can approach unseen and bite an unwitting visitor. YouTube is full of videos of people breaking the rules to make the foxes approach, so that they can conclude that the foxes of Zaō Fox Village act as well as look cute. ‘They’re like a cross between a dog and a cat,’ is a common You-Tuber refrain, but I don’t agree.5

据狐狸村的管理员介绍，狐狸非常胆小，也非常好奇。41当没有幼崽时，几只最温顺的成年狐狸会被关在围栏里，坐在游客的腿上，这些人工饲养的动物已经完全习惯了人类的存在。然而，管理员佐藤文子解释说，虽然狐狸喜欢偷游客的财物，但即使是最温顺的狐狸，只要脚趾轻轻一动，也会立刻躲开。这使得工作人员在需要治疗时很难捕捉到受伤的狐狸。6

According to the caretakers at the Fox Village, the foxes are extremely fearful as well as very curious. A few of the calmest 41adults are kept inside the enclosure to sit on visitors’ laps when no cubs are available, and these hand-raised creatures are fully habituated to human presence. However, the caretaker, Fumiko Satō, explained that although the foxes love to steal visitors’ possessions, the slightest twitch of a toe will make even the calmest of them shy away immediately. This makes it extremely difficult for the staff to capture an injured fox when it requires treatment.6

狐狸的冷漠揭示了野生动物和家养动物之间的一个关键区别。狗和猫会主动寻找人类，但狐狸从根本上来说并不关心人类。如果人类手里没有食物，那它或许就是食物。同样，悬挂的手机挂绳也可能是零食，而不是邀请新朋友玩耍。

The foxes’ indifference reveals a crucial difference between wild and domesticated animals. Dogs and cats seek out humans, but foxes fundamentally don’t care about people. If a human hand doesn’t contain food, then perhaps it is food. Likewise, a dangling phone strap is a possible snack, not an invitation to play with a new friend.

离开狐狸村，人们会经过一家礼品店，那里出售狐狸钟、风铃、饼干、玩具和贴纸。所有这些纪念品都展现了狐狸们最真实的面貌——挥手致意、摆出一副轻松活泼的姿势、露出一副真心实意的笑容——换句话说，它们以各种真正的狐狸所不具备的方式与我们互动。

In order to leave the Fox Village, one passes through the gift shop that sells fox clocks, wind chimes, biscuits, toys and stickers. All of these souvenirs render the foxes as we would prefer to see them – waving hello, posing jauntily and smiling as if they really mean it – in other words, engaging with us in all the ways that the real foxes do not.

驯化综合症

The domestication syndrome

虽然藏王狐狸村的狐狸几十年来一直与人类生活在一起，但它们仍然是野生动物。它们不同于家养动物，家养动物不仅对人类好奇，而且对人类很友好。在藏王狐狸村，游客们试图说服自己狐狸很可爱，而这些动物本身并没有做出任何有意义的反应。但像狗和猫这样的家养动物实际上想要和我们在一起，除了友善的行为外，它们的外貌也发生了改变。家养动物比野生动物更可爱，因为它们即使成年后，仍然保留着幼年时婴儿般的特征，而这些特征正是我们喜欢的。为什么会这样呢？四十二可爱会引发我们如此深刻的情感反应，以至于我们让伴侣动物顺从我们的欲望吗？

Although the foxes of Zaō Fox Village have been living close to humans for decades, they are still wild. They are different from domesticated animals, which are not merely curious about, but friendly towards, humans. At Zaō Fox Village visitors try to convince themselves that the foxes are cute, without any meaningful input from the animals themselves. But domesticated animals like dogs and cats actually want to be around us, and along with their friendly behaviour, they have an altered appearance. Domesticated animals are cuter than their wild counterparts because, even as adults, they retain the juvenile, baby-like features that we find appealing. Why did this happen? 42Does cuteness trigger such deep emotional responses in us that we caused our companion animals to conform to our desire?

这引出了另一个问题：为什么有些动物变得温顺，而有些却依然保持野性？长期以来，答案似乎显而易见。人们认为，早期人类只会容忍那些拥有有益特质的动物的存在。例如，如果几只狼悄悄靠近人类，从他们的垃圾堆里取食，它们就能在更大的捕食者出现时发出警告。攻击性较强的狼会被赶走，而较为温顺的则会被留下。达尔文将这一过程称为“无意识选择”。如果有足够的时间，这种筛选过程将产生一个足够温顺的狼种群，从而开始人工选择——也就是选择特定的动物进行繁殖。最终，我们进化出了狗。

This begs another question: how have some animals become tame while others remain wild? For a long time the answer seemed obvious. It was thought that early humans would only tolerate the presence of animals that had useful traits. For example, if a few wolves crept close enough to humans to eat from their rubbish heaps, they could provide a warning if larger predators showed up. Aggressive specimens would have been chased away, while calmer individuals were allowed to remain. Darwin called this process ‘unconscious selection’. Given enough time, such winnowing would produce a population of wolves that were calm enough to begin artificial selection – that is, choosing particular animals to breed together. Eventually we ended up with dogs.

然而，达尔文无法解释这一过程的一个方面：驯化似乎会以相同的方式改变不同物种动物的行为和外貌。这些变化统称为“驯化综合症”。

However, there is one aspect to this process that Darwin was unable to explain: becoming tame seems to change both the behaviour and the appearance of different species of animals in the same way. Collectively these changes are known as ‘the domestication syndrome’.

从狗和羊到猪和兔子，所有类型的动物在被驯化的过程中都会经历类似的过程。它们的皮毛会变色；牙齿会萎缩；口鼻部会变短；头会变得越来越小，越来越宽；耳朵会变得更小更松软；尾巴也会变得卷曲。它们的生育能力和繁殖周期也会发生变化；由于脑垂体产生的应激激素减弱，它们会变得温顺；它们的大脑会萎缩，幼年行为会持续到生命的晚期。达尔文对这一系列看似复杂的变化感到困惑，这些变化似乎存在于许多不同的物种中，包括鸟类和一些鱼类，他之后的许多科学家也对此感到困惑。事实上，驯化综合症的神秘起源被广泛认为是遗传学中最古老的问题之一。7 43

All types of animals, from dogs and sheep to pigs and rabbits, exhibit a similar process as they become domesticated. Their fur changes colour; their teeth shrink; their muzzles get shorter; their heads grow smaller and wider; their ears become smaller and floppier; and their tails become curly. Their fertility and breeding cycles change; they become docile, due to the attenuation of stress hormones produced by the pituitary gland; their brains shrink, and juvenile behaviour persists much later in life. Darwin puzzled over this diverse suite of changes that somehow held true across so many different species, including birds and some fish, as did many scientists who followed him. In fact the mysterious origin of the domestication syndrome is widely considered to be one of the oldest problems in genetics.7 43

由于缺乏其他解释，科学家们认为这些特征是个体选择的，因为它们很有用。然而，令人惊讶的是，与驯化综合症相关的许多特征仅仅是因为可爱。狗的耷拉着的耳朵可能很可爱，但如果它们像狼祖先一样有尖尖的耳朵，它们肯定会更擅长狩猎。同样，卷曲的尾巴、较短的口鼻、较小的牙齿、较宽的头部以及玩耍的欲望并不是特别有用——但它们很可爱。

Lacking another explanation, scientists believed these traits were selected individually because they were useful. However, it’s striking how many traits associated with the domestication syndrome are simply cute. Floppy ears on dogs may be adorable, but they would surely be better at hunting if they had pointed ears, like their wolf ancestors. Likewise curly tails, shorter muzzles, smaller teeth, wider heads and the desire to play aren’t particularly useful – but they are cute.

起初我以为这又一次证明了“可爱”的魅力——所有这些特质似乎都是通过人工选择在不同物种身上形成的，因为它们可爱才被选中。后来我发现了一个令人震惊的实验，它提供了一个截然不同的解释。在远离藏王狐狸村的西伯利亚荒野，科学家们培育了一个独特的狐狸种群，这或许朝着解开驯化综合症之谜迈出了重要的一步。

At first I thought this was yet more evidence for the seductive power of cuteness – it seemed that all of these qualities must have arrived in different species through artificial selection, chosen because they were adorable. Then I discovered an astonishing experiment that offers a very different explanation. Far from the Zaō Fox Village, in the Siberian wilderness, scientists breeding a unique population of foxes may have taken a significant step towards solving the mystery of the domestication syndrome.

西伯利亚银狐实验

The Siberian silver fox experiment

在世界各地的民间传说中，狐狸与人类亲近，却又疏远。它们似乎能够友好相处，却从未迈出第一步。这种看似尚未开发的潜力促成了一项独特的实验，让我们更接近揭开伴侣动物如何成为人类朋友的谜团。故事始于1952年，当时负责西伯利亚毛皮动物中央研究实验室的科学家德米特里·别利亚耶夫构思了一项激进且具有政治危险性的基因实验。8

In folklore around the world, foxes are close to humans, yet also distant. They seem capable of being friendly, but never take that first step. This seemingly untapped potential prompted a unique experiment that brings us significantly closer to unravelling the mystery of how companion animals became our friends. The story begins in 1952 when Dmitri Belyaev, a scientist who ran the Central Research Laboratory on Fur-Breeding Animals in Siberia, conceived of a radical and politically dangerous genetic experiment.8

别利亚耶夫是斯大林统治下的苏联的一名非法科学家：在当时，整个遗传学领域都被视为伪科学。从事该领域研究的人被剥夺职位、流放甚至监禁，但别利亚耶夫决心为科学做出比光鲜亮丽的狐皮大衣更丰厚的贡献。四十四

Belyaev was an outlaw scientist in Stalin’s USSR: a geneticist at a time when the entire field was considered fake science. Its practitioners were stripped of their positions, exiled and even imprisoned, yet Belyaev was determined to contribute more to science than lustrous fox-fur coats. 44

养过狗或猫的人都知道，它们具有独特的性格特征；在经营狐狸养殖场时，别利亚耶夫注意到，狐狸在幼崽时期表现出的行为——从好奇到恐惧、攻击性甚至温顺——会一直延续到成年。9他深刻地认识到，这些特征之一，即对人类的友好，对于驯化来说一定比其他特征更为重要。10别利亚耶夫沉思道，如果他开始刻意挑选对人类恐惧较少的狐狸，然后将它们放在一起繁殖，最终的结果可能是狐狸表现出与生俱来的冷静遗传特征。

Anyone who has raised a dog or cat knows they have distinct personality traits; in running the fox farms, Belyaev noticed that the behaviours that foxes demonstrated as cubs – from curiosity to fear, aggression or even docility – continued into adulthood.9 His great insight was that one of these traits, friendliness towards humans, must have been far more important to domestication than the others.10 If he started deliberately selecting foxes that showed less fear of humans and then breeding them together, Belyaev mused, the eventual result might be foxes that demonstrated calmness as an inherited trait from birth.

别利亚耶夫的假设是，根据狐狸是否愿意被接近（我们或许可以称之为“驯服性”）来饲养它们，最终会通过改变控制激素和神经递质的生理系统来抑制“战斗或逃跑”反应，而这些激素和神经递质会影响狐狸的行为。换句话说，如果别利亚耶夫的假设正确，他的狐狸最终可能会在基因上变得温顺。11如果不同物种对相同的选择压力做出相似的反应，那么这项实验或许可以在某种程度上解释驯化综合症。12

Belyaev’s hypothesis was that breeding foxes based on their willingness to be approached, which we may call ‘tameability’, would eventually dampen down the ‘fight or flight’ response by altering the physiological systems governing hormones and neurotransmitters that influence behaviour. In other words, if Belyaev was correct, his foxes might eventually become genetically tame.11 And if different species responded in similar ways to the same selective pressure, the experiment might go some way towards explaining the domestication syndrome.12

这项实验基于一个未经证实的假设。别利亚耶夫的主要目的是揭示驯化综合症的神秘起源。创造一个新的驯化物种将成为遗传学的里程碑，但这是否会发生仍是一个悬而未决的问题。

The experiment was based on an unproved hypothesis. Belyaev primarily sought to shed light on the mysterious origins of the domestication syndrome. The creation of a new domesticated species would constitute a landmark in genetic science, but whether or not it would happen was an open question.

他很清楚自己的实验至少要耗费数十年时间。此外，斯大林时代的苏联禁止遗传学研究，这使得别利亚耶夫不得不就其项目意图撒谎。官方文件将其列为提高银狐毛皮产量的尝试。13如果真相被揭露，他的实验就会立即终止。

He was well aware that his experiment would take decades, at the very least. Plus, research in genetics was banned in Stalin’s Russia, which required Belyaev to lie about the intent of his project. The official paperwork listed it as an attempt to improve fur production of the silver fox.13 Had the truth been revealed, his experiment would have ended immediately.

银狐是红狐的一种自然变种，栖息于北美、欧亚大陆和45北亚各地的森林、苔原、农田、草原，甚至城市。14自十九世纪末以来，俄罗斯就开始饲养银狐以获取皮毛。15我在藏王狐狸村看到了几只银狐，它们美丽的银色尖端黑色皮毛让我印象深刻。在别利亚耶夫开始实验之前，银狐已经被圈养了好几代，这些狐狸已经习惯了笼养生活。然而，这些狐狸并不善于与人相处——饲养者更注重的是改善它们皮毛的质量和颜色，而不是驯服它们。16

The silver fox is a naturally occurring colour variation of the red fox, which inhabits forests and tundra, farmland and prairie, and even cities all over North America, Eurasia and 45northern Asia.14 Silver foxes have been bred for their fur in Russia since the late nineteenth century.15 I saw a few at the Zaō Fox Village and was struck by their beautiful silver-tipped black fur. Many generations of silver foxes had been raised in captivity by the time Belyaev began his experiment, resulting in foxes that were habituated to living in cages. However, these foxes were not tolerant of people – the breeders were focused on improving the quality and colour of their fur rather than on their tameness.16

精英的到来

The arrival of the elite

1959年，别利亚耶夫迁至西伯利亚新西伯利亚，担任细胞学和遗传学研究所所长，他的实验由此开始。17为了挑选最温顺的狐狸幼崽进行繁殖，他制定了严格的规程。为了防止研究人员无意识地选择温顺的狐狸，他把狐狸关在围栏里，只允许它们与人类进行短暂且可控的接触。18选择标准非常严格，尤其是在初期，只有不到10%的最温顺的幼崽被选中成为父母。19

In 1959 Belyaev moved to Novosibirsk in Siberia to direct the Institute of Cytology and Genetics and his experiment began.17 Strict protocols were put in place to choose the calmest fox cubs for breeding. To prevent researchers from unconsciously choosing a cute fox over a calm one, he kept the foxes in enclosures with only brief and controlled contact with humans.18 The selection criteria were rigorous, especially in the beginning, when fewer than 10 per cent of the tamest pups were chosen to be parents.19

当别利亚耶夫开始实验时，农场里的狐狸对人表现出了一系列行为。大约30%的狐狸极具攻击性，只有10%的狐狸安静且好奇。然而，即使是那些看似温顺的狐狸，也容易咬伤工作人员，因为工作人员每次靠近它们时都会戴着厚厚的防护手套。20事实上，别利亚耶夫将他最初的样本群体称为“近乎野生动物”。21以研究生身份加入实验、后来成为该项目首席科学家的柳德米拉·特鲁特将第一代狐狸称为“喷火龙”。22它们比藏王狐狸村的狐狸更具攻击性和恐惧性——被关在狭小的笼子里可不会让它们性情温顺。

When Belyaev began his experiment, the farm foxes demonstrated a range of behaviours towards people. Around 30 per cent were extremely aggressive; only 10 per cent were quiet and curious. However, even the foxes that seemed benign were prone to biting the staff, who wore thick protective gloves whenever they went near them.20 In fact Belyaev referred to his initial sample population as ‘virtually wild animals’.21 Lyudmila Trut, who joined the experiment as a graduate student and later became the lead scientist on the project, called the first generation ‘fire-breathing dragons’.22 They were significantly more aggressive and fearful than the foxes of Zaō Fox Village – being kept in a small cage does not make for a placid temperament.

与许多野生动物一样，狐狸每年繁殖一次。46它们的行为变化原本预计要经过多年才会出现，但令研究人员惊讶的是，攻击性和恐惧性在短短几代内就消失了。为了使选择更加客观，别利亚耶夫根据驯服程度将狐狸幼崽分为三类。第三类，即驯服程度最低的狐狸，很快就变得比农场饲养的狐狸更温顺，饲养员可以亲手喂养它们。23

Like many wild animals, foxes breed once a year. Changes 46in their behaviour were expected only after many years, but to the researchers’ surprise, aggressive and fearful behaviours were eliminated in just a few generations. To make the selection more objective, Belyaev had divided the fox cubs into three categories according to tameness. Those in Class III, the least-tame category, soon became tamer than foxes bred on farms and allowed their keepers to feed them by hand.23

二级狐狸就像藏王狐狸村那只坐在我腿上的温顺成年狐狸。它们能容忍人类的接触，也愿意被抚摸，但对人没有任何情感反应或友善。真正的惊喜出现在1963年，第四代控制繁殖的狐狸幼崽开始在人类靠近时摇尾巴——这种行为在狐狸身上从未见过。24这些见到人很高兴的狐狸被划为一级狐狸，它们的数量在之后的每一代都不断增加。

Class II foxes were like the calm adult fox at Zaō Fox Village that sat on my lap. They tolerated human contact and let themselves be petted, but showed no emotional reaction or friendliness towards people. The real surprise came in 1963, with the fourth generation of controlled breeding. A single fox cub began to wag its tail at the approach of humans – a behaviour never before seen in foxes.24 Such foxes, which were happy to see people, were designated Class I and their numbers increased in every subsequent generation.

随着实验的进展，西伯利亚实验不断取得令人难以置信的成果。1965年，第六代幼崽诞生，其中一些幼崽表现出一系列类似狗的行为，包括试图蹭蹭饲养员、舔他们的手、在地上打滚以求抚摸肚子，以及在独处时发出呜咽声。25这一代幼崽中只有极少数表现出这些行为，但差异如此显著，以至于别利亚耶夫决定将这些超级友好的狐狸单独列为一个类别。它们成为IE级“精英”类别中的第一只。

As it progressed, the Siberian experiment continued to yield even more incredible results. In 1965 the sixth generation was born, and some of these cubs displayed a range of dog-like behaviours, including trying to nuzzle their caretakers and licking their hands, rolling on their backs hoping for belly rubs, and whining when they were left alone.25 Only a tiny minority of the cubs in this generation demonstrated these behaviours, but the difference was so striking that Belyaev decided these super-friendly foxes deserved a category of their own. They became the first in the Class IE ‘elite’ category.

在下一代中，约有10%的幼崽被评为精英。第八代又出现了另一个关键变化：一些幼崽生来就有卷曲的尾巴，这种特征不仅在狗身上常见，在其他家养动物（例如猪）中也常见。它们还保留了幼崽般的行为——极其顽皮，对一切都充满好奇——这种保留时间是野生幼崽的两倍。科学家们小心翼翼地观察幼崽，而不是试图与它们玩耍，但仅仅几年后，四十七每当饲养员靠近时，幼崽就会摇着尾巴跑向他们。26

In the next generation around 10 per cent were judged elite. In the eighth generation there was another key change: some of the cubs were born with curly tails, a trait seen not only in dogs, but in other domesticated animals such as pigs. They also retained pup-like behaviour – being extremely playful and boldly curious about everything – for twice as long as wild cubs. The scientists were careful to observe the cubs rather than trying to play with them, but just a few years later the cubs 47would run up to them with tails wagging whenever a caretaker approached.26

到1967年，精英狐狸开始容忍——甚至似乎渴望——人类的目光，尽管野生狐狸将直视视为威胁，常常会引发攻击性行为。27大约在这个时候，成年狐狸开始玩最初为幼崽准备的球。28相互凝视和成年狐狸的嬉戏行为有助于建立社会联系和建立联系。我们可能觉得一只动物看起来很可爱，但如果它注视着我们的眼睛并想要玩耍，我们就会感到一种亲近感，从而强化我们对它的情感反应。别利亚耶夫的银狐正朝着这个方向发展。

By 1967 the elite foxes were tolerating – and even seemed to desire – the human gaze, even though wild foxes see direct stares as a threat that often triggers aggressive behaviour.27 At around this time adult foxes started playing with the balls that had originally been brought for the cubs.28 Mutual gazing and adult playfulness are behaviours that encourage social affiliation and bonding. We may think an animal looks cute, but if it gazes into our eyes and wants to play, we feel a closeness that intensifies our emotional response to it. Belyaev’s silver foxes were heading in this direction.

1969年，第十代幼崽出生，其中18%被评定为IE级，同时出现了两个更令人惊讶的变化。第一个变化与耳朵有关。所有狐狸幼崽出生时耳朵都是耷拉着的，但出生几周后耳朵就会伸直，这对于依靠聆听猎物细微声音捕猎的物种来说是一项重要的生存特征。但有一只幼崽在成长过程中保留了耷拉着的耳朵，并将这一特征遗传给了下一代。另一个新特征与毛色有关。一只雄性幼崽额头中央长出了一颗白色的星形，此后，这种特征也变得越来越普遍。29

When the tenth generation of cubs was born in 1969, 18 per cent of them were judged Class IE, and two more surprising changes appeared. The first concerned their ears. All fox cubs are born with floppy ears, but they straighten out after the first couple of weeks of life, an important survival trait for a species that hunts by listening for the small noises made by its prey. But one cub retained her floppy ears as she grew up and passed this trait on to the next generation. The other new trait concerned fur colour. One male cub had a white star in the middle of his forehead, and thereafter this trait became increasingly common as well.29

白色斑纹，被称为花斑，是许多家养动物的常见特征，包括狗、牛、马和猫。我自己的猫托比额头上有一块白斑，即使在黑暗中也能从很远的地方轻易辨认出来，这正是大多数野生动物没有这种颜色的原因。松软的耳朵和花斑的皮毛是家养动物的两个特征，但人们一直认为它们是人类有意选择的。白色的皮毛斑纹使伴侣动物和牲畜更容易被饲养者发现，而松软的耳朵则被认为是因为它们看起来很可爱而被选择的。但狐狸实验对四十八这一理论提出了质疑；不知何故，这些变化在没有人类干预的情况下就出现了，这表明仅仅是对驯服的选择也产生了这些其他的影响。

White coloration, called piebald, is common to many domesticated animals, including dogs, cows, horses and cats. My own cat Toby has a white patch on his forehead that makes him easy to spot from far away, even in the dark, which is precisely why most wild animals don’t have such colouring. Floppy ears and piebald coats are two traits of the domestication syndrome, but it was always presumed that humans had intentionally selected them. White patches of fur make companion animals and livestock easier for their caretakers to see, while floppy ears were assumed to have been selected because they look cute. But the fox experiment was throwing doubt on 48this theory; somehow these changes were showing up without human intervention, suggesting that selection for tameness alone was producing these other effects, too.

到20世纪70年代初，别利亚耶夫饲养的狐狸体内的压力激素水平约为野生狐狸的一半。它们的肾上腺更小，血清素水平更高，这使得它们“更快乐”。30尽管工作人员一直小心翼翼地避免训练狐狸，但仍需要确凿的证据证明这些变化发生在基因层面；别利亚耶夫启动了一项平行实验，旨在测试狐狸是否真的遗传了驯化综合症的所有这些特征。31为了验证他的理论，他需要培育一个具有完全相反特征的新种群。

By the early 1970s the level of stress hormones in Belyaev’s foxes was about half that of wild foxes. Their adrenal glands were smaller and their serotonin levels higher, making for ‘happier’ animals.30 Although the staff had always been careful not to train the foxes, definitive proof was needed that the changes were happening at a genetic level; Belyaev initiated a parallel experiment designed to test if the foxes were really inheriting all these traits of the domestication syndrome.31 To test his theory, he needed to breed a new population with exactly the opposite traits.

现在，他不再选择温顺的动物，而是挑选最具攻击性的个体来繁殖新群体。实验中，未经挑选的狐狸作为对照组，对三组动物进行比较，以寻找动物驯化的根源。32随着攻击性群体的繁殖，这些狐狸开始对它们的饲养者构成挑战。与对照组相对平静的反应和温顺组表现出的爱不同，攻击性狐狸非常讨厌人类。我看过它们的视频，看到它们只要有人靠近，就会猛扑过去咬住笼子的栏杆，真是令人震惊。这些攻击性狐狸非但没有深情地注视饲养者的眼睛，反而会跟随人类的动作，看起来就像在跟踪猎物一样。33

Now, instead of choosing tame animals, he selected the most aggressive individuals to breed for the new group. With unselected foxes acting as a control group, the experiment had three groups of animals to compare in the search for the source of animal domestication.32 As the aggressive group bred, these foxes began to pose a challenge to their caregivers. Unlike the relatively muted reaction of the control group and the love shown by the tame group, the aggressive foxes absolutely hated humans. I’ve seen videos of them, and it’s alarming to watch as they lunge and bite the bars of their cage whenever anyone approaches. Far from gazing lovingly into the eyes of their caretakers, the aggressive foxes follow human movements, looking precisely as if they are stalking prey.33

20世纪70年代后期，随着狐狸攻击性谱系的牢固确立，人们进行了交叉抚养​​实验。实验中，研究人员精心将胚胎从攻击性母狐移植到温顺母狐，反之亦然。因此，攻击性母狐同一窝会同时产下攻击性和温顺性的后代。温顺的幼崽刚学会走路，就会在人类靠近时冲到笼子门口，摇着尾巴乞求关注。攻击性母狐会49抓住幼崽的颈背，把它们扔到笼子深处，试图鼓励幼崽表现出她认为合适的对人类态度。而温顺母狐所生的攻击性幼崽则会在人类靠近时咆哮，然后跑去寻找掩护。这证明，温顺性和攻击性在一定程度上都受基因控制。34

Later in the 1970s, with the aggressive fox line firmly established, cross-fostering experiments were performed in which embryos were painstakingly transplanted from aggressive mothers to tame mothers, and vice versa. Thus an aggressive mother would have both aggressive and tame offspring in the same litter. As soon as they could walk, the tame cubs rushed to the door of their cage when a human approached, wagging their tails to beg for attention. The aggressive mother would 49grab them by the scruff of their necks and throw them to the back of the cage, in an effort to encourage the attitude towards humans that she considered proper. The aggressive cubs born to tame mothers, on the other hand, growled at approaching humans before running for cover. This provided evidence that both tameness and aggression were, in part, governed at the genetic level.34

正当越来越多的证据表明基因遗传在实验中发挥作用时，更令人惊奇的结果出现了。到20世纪80年代中期，精英群体开始出现显著的身体变化。这些狐狸的鼻子和上颌变短，头骨变宽。除了卷曲之外，它们的尾巴也变得更短，甚至更加浓密，头部也明显变小。精英群体中，驯化综合征的特征越来越多地显现出来，同时它们也变得像狗一样温顺。35

Just as evidence mounted that genetic inheritance was at work in the experiment, even more amazing results appeared. By the mid-1980s striking physical changes began to manifest in the elite group. These foxes’ snouts and upper jaws shortened and their skulls widened. Along with curling, their tails became shorter and even bushier, and their heads significantly smaller. More and more traits of the domestication syndrome were showing up in the elite group, while they were becoming as tame as dogs.35

到21世纪初，实验中70%到80%的狐狸都进入了精英类别。36到2005-2006年，几乎100%的狐狸都按此标准分类。别利亚耶夫实验的成功似乎催生了一个新驯化的物种：这些狐狸热切地接近人类，终生保持温顺，并将这种特质传递给下一代。

By the turn of the twenty-first century 70–80 per cent of the foxes in the experiment were in the elite category.36 By 2005–6 almost 100 per cent of the foxes were classed in this way. The success of Belyaev’s experiment has seemingly resulted in a newly domesticated species: foxes that eagerly approach humans, remain tame throughout their lives and pass that quality on to the next generation.

藏王狐狸村的狐狸虽然能容忍人类，但它们并不会主动吸引我们，这限制了它们在我们眼中的可爱程度。另一方面，西伯利亚狐狸则表现出基因和行为上的变化，使它们更加友善，外形也变得更可爱了。然而，它们的驯化之旅尚未结束。到目前为止，狐狸的驯化过程仅限于驯服，其他所有变化都是副产品。如果特意培育它们的其他特性，它们作为家养物种的进化速度可能会更快。然而，即使没有这种选择性育种，它们仍然相当温顺。自2010年以来，别利亚耶夫的研究所一直在50出售精英狐狸作为宠物；一些幸运的主人正与驯服的狐狸愉快地过着家庭生活。

While the foxes at Zaō Fox Village tolerate humans, they don’t actively appeal to us, which limits their cuteness in our eyes. The Siberian foxes, on the other hand, showed both genetic and behavioural changes that made them more friendly – and their appearance became cuter, too. However, their journey towards domestication is not over. So far the foxes have been bred only for tameness, with all other changes coming as a by-product. If they were intentionally bred for the other traits, their evolution as a domesticated species could proceed even more quickly. Even without such selective breeding, however, they are still quite tame. Since 2010 Belyaev’s institute has been 50selling elite foxes as pets; a few lucky owners are happily settling into domestic life with a tame fox.

为了见到这些温顺的俄罗斯狐狸，我必须找到那些被领养为宠物的。它们散居世界各地，但经过一番努力，我找到了阳光明媚的圣地亚哥附近的JAB犬科动物教育与保护中心。那里有三只俄罗斯狐狸，而且很愿意让我见见它们。

To meet these tame Russian foxes, I had to find ones that had been adopted as pets. They are scattered all over the world, but assiduous searching led me to the JAB Canid Education and Conservation Center near sunny San Diego, which had three of the Russian foxes and was willing to let me meet them.

与精英会面

Meeting the elite

从圣地亚哥到西伯利亚狐狸新家的路上，我从阳光普照的沙漠一路来到凉爽的山区。抵达保护中心时，加州的交通让我紧张不安，同时又因为即将见到世界上最新的家养动物而兴奋不已。然而，当艾米·巴塞特来接我的车时，那些跳来跳去、挣脱她牵着的皮带的动物却不是狐狸。它们看起来像狗，但它们持续不断的嚎叫声却与我以往听到的任何声音都不同。艾米介绍说，它们是尼基和斯图姆皮·杜，属于一种非常稀有的品种：新几内亚唱犬。

The road from San Diego to the Siberian foxes’ new home took me from the sun-drenched desert into the cool mountains. When I arrived at the conservation centre, I was jittery with anxiety from the California traffic and pumped with adrenaline from anticipation at meeting the world’s newest domesticated animal. But when Amy Bassett came to meet my car, the leaping animals straining at the leashes she held were not foxes. They looked like dogs, but their constant howling was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Amy introduced them as Nicky and Stumpy Doo, members of a very rare breed: New Guinea singing dogs.

与澳大利亚野狗一样，这些犬类也曾是家养犬种，数千年前在新几内亚山区与人类和其他犬类隔绝后回归野外。它们以独特的方式进化，为我们了解犬类挚友的起源提供了一个独特的视角。37

Like the Australian dingo, these dogs are a formerly domesticated breed that returned to the wild thousands of years ago when they became isolated from both humans and other dogs in the mountains of New Guinea. They provide a unique window into the origins of our canine best friends, because they evolved in their own way.37

艾米对动物保护充满热情，她解释说，唱歌的狗在茂密的山间植被中嚎叫是为了与它们的群体交流。它们并不野生，但也并不温顺。除了非常吵闹之外，它们还极难进行家养训练——在几千年前它们被驯化时，这并非当务之急。然而，尼基和斯图姆皮杜无疑是狗。它们走到我面​​前，51把脸埋在我的腿上，疯狂地摇着尾巴：它们想和我做朋友，而且它们知道该怎么做。

Amy, who has a passion for animal conservation, explained that singing dogs howl to communicate with their pack in the dense mountain vegetation. They are not wild, but not quite tame, either. In addition to being very noisy, they are extremely difficult to house-train – this was not a priority when they were domesticated thousands of years ago. Yet Nicky and Stumpy Doo were unquestionably dogs. They came up to me and 51shoved their faces in my lap, wagging their tails wildly: they wanted to be friends and they knew how to go about it.

李·艾伦·杜加特金 (Lee Alan Dugatkin) 和银狐实验首席研究员柳德米拉·特鲁特 (Lyudmila Trut) 合著的《如何驯服狐狸（和养狗）》一书讲述了这个非凡的故事。艾米说，有些人对书名中的后半部分未能成功实现感到失望，但养狗从来都不是这两位俄罗斯科学家的目标。艾米的搭档戴夫是一个安静的人，他与动物的深厚感情体现在他稳健的动作和密切的关注中。他指出，西伯利亚狐狸实验涉及一个旨在阐明驯化基本要素的实验室模型。结果确实是一种新的家养动物，但它仍然忠于自己的起源——这正是我一直在寻找的。

The book How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog), by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut, who was lead researcher on the silver fox experiment, tells this remarkable story. According to Amy, some people are disappointed that the second part of the book’s title has not yet been successfully realised, but building a dog was never the Russian scientists’ goal. Amy’s partner Dave, a quiet guy whose deep connection to animals was apparent in his steady movements and close attention, notes that the Siberian-fox experiment involved a laboratory model designed to illuminate the basic elements of domestication. The result was indeed a new domesticated animal, but one that remains true to its origins – just what I was looking for.

那天我遇到了三只西伯利亚家养狐狸：银色的马克萨（Maksa）、红色的维克多（Viktor）和一只格鲁吉亚白狐米哈伊尔（Mikhail）。这些狐狸生活在室外围栏区域，有充足的奔跑空间和遮荫棚。戴夫把它们放出来后，它们冲过来嗅我。之后，它们像闪电一样飞奔而去，探索围栏的每个角落。它们不像新几内亚的唱犬那样逗留。它们对我很好奇——也对其他一切都很好奇。然而，它们与藏王狐狸村的狐狸截然不同。我立刻对马克萨、维克多和米哈伊尔产生了一种亲近感。它们想成为我的朋友。

I met three Siberian domesticated foxes that day: silver Maksa, red Viktor and Mikhail, a Georgian white. The foxes live in an outdoor fenced area with room to run and a shed for shade. When Dave let them out, they rushed over to sniff me. After that, they were off like a flash to investigate every corner of the enclosure. They didn’t linger, like the New Guinea singing dogs. They were curious about me – and about everything else. However, there was a huge difference from the foxes of Zaō Fox Village. I felt an immediate connection to Maksa, Viktor and Mikhail. They wanted to be friends.

就在我和俄罗斯狐狸建立联系的时候，艾米和戴夫又带了一只狐狸进入围栏。这只狐狸名叫伊希，是一只美国狐狸，小时候被人从皮毛养殖场救出来，由人亲手抚养长大。伊希已经习惯了人类，但基因上并不温顺。它进入围栏后，绕着外围走了一圈，然后躲到了长凳下面。它对艾米和戴夫很友好，但对我却很警惕。

Just as I was bonding with the Russian foxes, Amy and Dave brought another fox into the enclosure. This was Ishy, a US fox that had been rescued from a fur farm as a pup and hand-raised by people. Ishy is habituated to humans, but not genetically tame. When she came into the enclosure, she did a circuit of the outer edge, then retreated under a bench. She was friendly with Amy and Dave, but quite wary of me.

Ishy 比藏王狐狸村的动物们更温顺，但她的社会化程度却很肤浅。戴夫说，虽然她比西伯利亚狐狸更年轻、体型更小，但她在大多数争夺统治权的52互动中都能获胜，因为她咬得更狠。据戴夫说，当这种情况发生时，西伯利亚狐狸似乎会感到被背叛——你可以从它们的眼神中看出，它们在想：“这不是我们玩的游戏。”

Ishy is tamer than the Zaō Fox Village animals, but her socialisation is skin-deep. Dave said that although she is younger and smaller than the Siberian foxes, she wins most dominance 52interactions because she bites harder. According to Dave, when this happens, the Siberian foxes seem to feel betrayed – you can see in their eyes that they’re thinking, ‘That’s not the game we play.’

戴夫把伊希的驯服比作软件补丁。它大多数时候都能正常工作，但如果失效，它的行为就会瞬间改变。而西伯利亚狐则拥有完全不同的软件。驯化重塑了它们的大脑。“它们就像拥有灵魂一样，”艾米说。“它们拥有生命，我看着它们的眼睛，它们也看着我的眼睛，我们彼此相遇。这种联系是我在美国狐狸身上无法获得的。”

Dave likened Ishy’s tameness to a software patch. It works most of the time, but if it fails, her behaviour can change in a heartbeat. The Siberian foxes, on the other hand, have different software altogether. Domestication has rewired their brains. ‘It’s like they have a soul,’ says Amy. ‘They have a being and I look into their eyes and they look into mine and we see each other. There’s that connection that I don’t, or can’t, get from the US foxes.’

艾米解释说，他们通常不让人抱西伯利亚狐，但既然它们靠近我时毫无紧张迹象，她决定破例。戴夫抱起格鲁吉亚白狐米哈伊尔，把它放在我怀里。米哈伊尔抬头看着我，张开嘴，把头凑到我的鼻子边。看到一口狐狸牙齿扑面而来，我惊慌地向后靠去，米哈伊尔却伸出手，轻轻地把我的鼻尖含在嘴里。那一刻，我心中涌起一阵喜悦。一只我刚刚遇到的动物正在热情地打招呼——不像狗，而像狐狸。

Amy explained that they don’t usually allow people to hold the Siberian foxes, but since they approached me without any signs of stress, she decided to make an exception. Dave picked up Mikhail, the Georgian white, and placed him in my arms. Mikhail looked up at me, opened his jaws and moved his head towards my nose. Alarmed at the sight of an approaching mouthful of fox teeth, I leaned back in a panic, only for Mikhail to reach out and gently take the tip of my nose in his mouth. At that moment, joy washed over me. An animal I had just met was saying an affectionate hello – not like a dog, but like a fox.

西伯利亚狐狸并非变成了狗，而是以一种新的方式与人类融为一体的狐狸。巴塞特夫妇正尝试训练他们的狐狸与人类相处，这意味着要了解它们，并适应它们的性情。例如，巴塞特夫妇发现，虽然狐狸学把戏的能力和狗一样好，但它们有时也过于聪明了。你可以假装手里拿着零食，让狗耍花招。但狐狸很快就识破了你的诡计，干脆走开。这表明人与宠物的关系并非单向的。人类也必须经过社会化才能与动物互动。53

The Siberian foxes have not become dogs; rather, they are foxes that are attuned to humans in a new way. The Bassetts are trying to train their foxes in the ways of relating to humans, which means getting to know them on their terms and adjusting to their temperament. For example, the Bassetts have discovered that although the foxes learn tricks as well as dogs, at times they are too smart. You can fool a dog into doing a trick by pretending you have a treat in your hand. But the foxes figure out the subterfuge immediately and simply walk away. This shows that the human–pet relationship is not one-way. Humans must be socialised to interact with animals, too.53

图 2.2：与家养的西伯利亚狐近距离接触。

Fig. 2.2: Close encounter with a domesticated Siberian fox.

然而，家养狐狸的聪明才智并非它们最让我印象深刻之处。戴夫告诉我，当玛莎把球丢在沙发底下时，她不会像野狐那样，只是从不同角度挠球。“她会像狗一样抬头看着我，”戴夫说，“你能帮我吗？” 对我来说，这体现了我们与家养动物之间关系的本质。我们不仅仅是它们环境中的物品；我们是可以交流和互相帮助的伙伴。

However, the cleverness of the domesticated foxes is not what impressed me most about them. Dave told me that when Maksa loses her ball under the couch, she doesn’t simply scratch at it from different angles, like a wild fox would. ‘She’ll look up at me just like a dog would,’ Dave said. ‘Can you help me?’ To me, this speaks to the essence of the relationship that we can forge with domesticated animals. We’re not merely objects in their environment; we’re fellow beings who can communicate and help each other.

我一直以为“可爱”主要是一种视觉现象，但与狐狸相处的经历让我意识到，我们对“可爱”的感知也与事物的行为方式有关。这与入户野宏等心理学家的研究结果一致，他们认为“可爱”会引发亲和行为，也就是强化社会联系的行为。

I had always thought that cuteness was primarily a visual phenomenon, but my experience with foxes made me realise that our perception of cuteness is also related to how something acts. This is in line with the findings of psychologists like Hiroshi Nittono, who maintain that cuteness elicits affiliative behaviour, or actions that reinforce social bonds.

艾米把我介绍给他们54救助的野生狐狸伊希时，她说伊希的毛色——白色的脸、黑框的眼睛和耳朵——让她成为所有狐狸中最可爱的。但当伊希看了我一眼，立刻躲到长凳底下时，我却无动于衷。我的“可爱”反应是被西伯利亚狐狸马克萨、维克多和米哈伊尔的友好行为所激发的。多亏了它们，我开始明白，可爱不仅仅是肤浅的。

When Amy introduced me to Ishy, their undomesticated 54rescue fox, she said Ishy’s coloration, with her white face and black-rimmed eyes and ears, made her the cutest-looking of all their foxes. But when Ishy looked at me and promptly retreated under a bench, I was left unmoved. My cuteness response was triggered by the friendly behaviour of Maksa, Viktor and Mikhail, the Siberian foxes. Thanks to them, I began to think that cuteness was more than simply skin deep.

这反过来又让我对“可爱”在人类文化中的兴起有了新的认识。从亲和性社会行为的角度来思考“可爱”，比如西伯利亚狐狸所展现的那种行为，让我意识到，欧洲艺术中有一个由来已久的主题，代表着将人们联系在一起的力量：爱神丘比特。

This in turn gave me new insight into the rise of cuteness in human culture. Thinking about cuteness in terms of affiliative social behaviour, like that shown by the Siberian foxes, led me to realise that there was a long-standing motif in European art that represents the force that brings people together: Cupid, the god of love.

55

3

3

西方的可爱

Cuteness in the West

可爱是人类生理的一部分。至少这个假设似乎最符合事实。人类儿童需要多年的关爱和社会化，而可爱有助于完成这项工作。然而，很难找到支持这一理论的实质性证据。除了洛伦兹在其儿童图式中识别出的婴儿特征外，一个物体是否可爱取决于我们的感知。以婴儿摇铃为例，它是已知最早的玩具之一。古代世界用陶土制作了大量婴儿摇铃，其中许多纯粹是实用的，但也有一些在现代人看来显得异想天开、充满趣味。当时的父母是喜欢看到自己的孩子抓着动物形状的摇铃，还是说这些摇铃是为了驱邪？我们无法确切知道。

Cuteness is part of human biology. At least that’s the hypothesis that seems to best fit the facts. Human children need years of care and socialisation, and being cute helps to get the job done. However, it’s difficult to locate material evidence for this theory. Apart from the baby-like features that Lorenz identified in his child schema, whether an object is cute or not depends on our perception. Take baby rattles, one of the earliest known toys. The ancient world produced plenty of these from terracotta pottery, and many of them are purely practical, but a few seem whimsical and playful to modern eyes. Did parents at that time enjoy the sight of their babies clutching rattles shaped like animals or were they meant to ward off evil spirits? It’s impossible to know for sure.

这就是在文化中寻找“可爱”的挑战所在。日本的56情况不同——“可爱”的基石早在一千年前就已存在——但当我转向中世纪欧洲的美术时，却几乎一无所获。僧侣们似乎从未想过，他们会在动物寓言集里赋予动物俏皮的个性，或者以写实的方式描绘它们。偶尔，我能在他们中间感受到一位爱猫人士。一本来自法国北部的十三世纪动物寓言集里，有一幅猫注视老鼠的图画，颇为可爱。1但这种情况很少见——动物的象征意义似乎比其外观更为重要。

That’s the challenge of locating cuteness in culture. Japan 56was different – the building blocks of cuteness were in place a thousand years ago – but when I turned to the fine arts of medieval Europe, I found almost nothing. It didn’t seem to occur to monks that they might add a playful personality to the animals they portrayed in bestiaries, or to draw them in a realistic manner. Once in a while I can sense a cat-lover among them. A thirteenth-century bestiary from northern France includes an image of a cat watching a mouse, which is kind of cute.1 But such cases are rare – the symbolic meaning of the animal seems to have been more important than its appearance.

十八世纪之前的肖像画中出现的儿童很少可爱，因为他们几乎看起来不像孩子，艺术家们不仅关注孩子的外貌，也同样关注孩子长大成人后的样子。孩子们的姿势僵硬，表情严肃，象征着家族血脉的延续，而且他们往往缺乏个性。2

Children who appear in portraits before the eighteenth century are rarely cute because they hardly ever look like children, as artists focused as much on the adult that the child would become as on the physical aspects of the child. Children were posed stiffly with serious expressions, to show that a family lineage would continue, and they tend to show little personality.2

丘比特，爱神宝宝

Cupid, the baby god of love

然而，在文艺复兴时期和洛可可时期（约15至18世纪）之间，可爱的孩子随处可见——只是他们并非真实存在。相反，他们以小丘比特的形象出现，在绘画和壁画的边缘嬉戏玩耍。这些长着翅膀的小婴儿经久不衰，使得丘比特成为西方艺术中三个世纪以来可爱形象的主要表达。

However, cute children could be found everywhere between the Renaissance and the rococo period (c. the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries) – they just weren’t real. Instead they took the form of little cupids, gambolling around the edges of paintings and frescoes. The enduring popularity of these tiny winged babies made cupids the major expression of cuteness in Western art for three centuries.

丘比特最初是希腊神话中的爱神厄洛斯，他被描绘成青春期少年而非婴儿。但在公元前四世纪，少年厄洛斯变得更年轻，并开始呈现出圆润的婴儿形象，成为受其母亲阿佛洛狄忒控制的婴儿爱神。3罗马人后来采用了这个形象，并将其命名为丘比特。由于罗马艺术家擅长描绘人形，他们的丘比特作品通常也沿用了儿童形象。然而，随着基督教时代的到来，57异教婴儿爱神形象逐渐淡出人们的视野。丘比特在中世纪出现时，他的形象常常被扭曲，或被描绘成前基督教时代的邪恶象征。4

Cupid began as the Greek god Eros, who was depicted not as an infant but as an adolescent youth. But in the fourth century bce the teenage Eros became younger and began to take on the rounded form of a child, a baby god of love who acted under the control of his mother, Aphrodite.3 The Romans adopted this later version and named him Cupid. Since Roman artists were skilled at depicting the human form, their cupids often followed the child schema. However, as the Christian era dawned, 57pagan baby love-gods fell out of fashion. When Cupid showed up in the medieval period, his form was often distorted or represented as an emblem of evil from the pre-Christian world.4

文艺复兴时期，艺术家们从古典时期汲取灵感。他们重新发现了可爱的罗马丘比特，并开始将其融入绘画、雕塑和壁画中。新的丘比特潮流始于意大利，在那里，古典风格的裸体长翼婴儿被称为“小天使”（putti）或“小天使”。5像多纳泰罗这样的艺术家将丘比特提升到天使的境界，并使其成为基督教肖像画的一部分。6 16世纪，丘比特作为一种装饰图案大量出现，并在17世纪进一步发展。7

In the Renaissance, artists turned to the classical period for inspiration. They rediscovered the cute Roman cupids and started adding them to their paintings, sculptures and frescoes. The new cupid trend began in Italy, where nude winged infants in the classical style were called putti or cherubs.5 Artists like Donatello elevated the cupid to the sphere of the angels and made him part of Christian iconography.6 In the sixteenth century cupids proliferated as an ornamental motif, and the trend accelerated in the seventeenth century.7

这些象征爱的婴儿神像越来越受欢迎，到了十八世纪，它们出现在从马桶到烛台的各种物品上。胖乎乎的婴儿在云朵中嬉戏，在波浪中嬉闹，在丝带和鲜花中嬉戏。但丘比特和小天使不仅仅是一个流行的主题；它们还具有严肃的宗教意义，这常常影响它们的可爱。

The popularity of these baby gods of love grew, and in the eighteenth century they appeared on everything from commodes to candlesticks. Chubby babies capered in the clouds, gambolled in the waves and frolicked among ribbons and flowers. But cupids and cherubs were more than simply a popular motif; they also had a serious religious meaning that often affected their cuteness.

拉斐尔的西斯廷圣母像上的小天使可能看起来很可爱，但他们仍然是神圣的天使——来自天界，他们并不代表真正的孩子，并且完全了解婴儿耶稣将要经历的考验和磨难。8这些成人的特质削弱了他们孩子般的可爱。

The cherubs who adorn Raphael’s Sistine Madonna may look cute, but they were still divine angels – being from the heavenly realm, they didn’t represent real children and were fully aware of the trials and tribulations that awaited the infant Jesus.8 These adult qualities detracted from their childlike cuteness.

随着十八世纪中叶洛可可时代的消退，丘比特也逐渐淡出人们的视线——与此同时，儿童肖像画也迎来了一场革命。僵硬的姿势消失了，孩子们的个性开始闪耀。如今，看着这些画作，人们仿佛突然意识到，他们周围环绕着的，正是那些装饰着墙壁的可爱丘比特的活生生的形象。为什么他们花了这么长时间才意识到，现实生活中的孩子身上也充满了可爱？

As the rococo era waned in the mid-eighteenth century, cupids fell out of fashion – just as a revolution was taking place in child portraiture. Stiff poses vanished and the personality of children started to shine through. Looking at the paintings now, it’s as if people suddenly realised that they were surrounded by living, breathing versions of the cute cupids that adorned their walls. Why had it taken them so long to recognise cuteness in real children?

图 3.1：拉斐尔的西斯廷圣母（1513-14 年）中的小天使。

Fig. 3.1: Raphael’s cherubs from the Sistine Madonna (1513–14).

当我回顾童年的历史时，我惊讶地发现一场激烈的学术58争论的余波仍在继续。这场争论始于1960年，当时历史学家菲利普·阿里埃斯（Philippe Ariès）认为，西方文化在其历史的大部分时期中，根本没有任何“童年”的概念。阿里埃斯在其里程碑式的著作《几个世纪的童年》中提出，“童年”的概念是启蒙思想的产物。他声称，在前现代时期，童年并不被视为一个独特的人生阶段。那时，成年人关心孩子，但并不真正与他们互动。他说，孩子们被当作有缺陷的成年人来对待。

When I looked into the history of childhood, I was surprised to find the smoking remnants of a raging academic 58debate. It had begun in 1960, when the historian Philippe Ariès suggested that for most of its history Western culture didn’t have any concept of childhood at all. In his landmark study Centuries of Childhood, Ariès proposed that the concept of childhood was a product of Enlightenment thinking. In premodern times, he claimed, childhood was not considered to be a distinct stage of life. Back then, adults cared for children, but didn’t really engage with them. Children, he said, were treated as deficient adults.

根据阿里耶斯的说法，前现代儿童大约在七岁时就进入了成人社会，因此中世纪绘画中的人物看起来都像身材矮小的成年人。正因如此，阿里耶斯认为，人们并不重视童年作为人生的一个特殊阶段，更有可能对这些无能的小大人施加严厉的管教，而不是珍惜他们的天真，纵容他们的淘气。9

According to Ariès, pre-modern children joined adult society at around the age of seven, which is why medieval paintings include figures who look like very short adults. For this reason, Ariès maintained that people didn’t value childhood as a special stage of life and were more likely to impose harsh discipline on these incompetent little adults than cherish their innocence and indulge their mischief.9

许多后来的历史学家甚至提出了更为激进的论断，认为59过去的父母并不爱自己的孩子。“在前现代家庭中，人们不会指望比在鸟巢中找到更多的爱，”阿里埃斯的一位英国助手写道。10这些历史学家认为，在一个婴儿死亡率极高的世界里，善意的忽视是孩子们所能期待的最好结果。他们声称，父母选择限制对子女的情感投入，毕竟，这些子女的寿命可能很短。

Many later historians made the even more radical claim that 59parents in the past had not loved their children. ‘One would not expect to find any more love in a premodern family than one would in a bird’s nest,’ wrote one of Ariès’s English aco-lytes.10 These historians argued that in a world with sky-high rates of infant mortality, benign neglect was the best children could hope for. They claimed that parents chose to limit their emotional investment in offspring who, after all, were likely to live for only a short time.

在我看来，认为父母直到现代才爱子女的想法似乎荒谬至极。我很高兴地发现，人们强烈反对这种想法。历史学家们从信件和日记中——阿里埃斯及其追随者忽略的资料——提供了证据，表明中世纪的父母爱他们的孩子，并为他们可爱的行为感到高兴。例如，父亲在孩子出生时给亲朋好友寄去祝贺信是很常见的。中世纪英国的法律法规规定了保护儿童的必要性。对此发表意见的日本学者指出，在他们国家，七岁以下的儿童长期以来一直受到纵容。高儿童死亡率带来的情感代价是巨大的，但这并没有排除对孩子的情感依恋或对孩子死亡的悲痛。11 1603年，诗人本·琼森为他七岁时死于瘟疫的长子写了一首挽歌。在最后一句中，他痛苦地后悔自己太喜欢他的儿子，这突显了他对孩子的爱使得失去儿子的痛苦如此难以承受。

To me, the idea that parents didn’t love their children until modern times seemed preposterous. I was relieved to find that there was strong resistance to this idea. Historians presented evidence from letters and diaries – sources that Ariès and his followers had ignored – to show that medieval parents had loved their children and delighted in their cute antics. For example, it was common for fathers to send celebratory letters to friends and family upon the birth of a child. Legal codes in medieval England stipulated the need to protect children. Japanese scholars weighing in on the matter noted that children under seven in their country had long been treated with indulgence. The emotional cost of high child mortality was great, but it didn’t preclude either emotional attachment to children or grief at their deaths.11 In 1603 the poet Ben Jonson wrote an elegy for his first son, who died of the plague at the age of seven. In the last line he bitterly regrets liking his son too much, which highlights that it was his affection for the child that made the loss so difficult to bear.

尘埃落定后，研究童年史的学者们一致认为，前现代欧洲社会确实认为童年是一个特殊时期，尽管它很短暂——许多儿童很小就进入了劳动力市场。然而，很明显，这个人生阶段被赋予了不同的含义。阿里耶斯说得对，儿童通常被视为不完整的成年人。一般来说，他们是边缘人物，不被认为是社会的重要组成部分。12

When the dust had settled, historians of childhood came to agree that pre-modern European societies did think of childhood as a special period, albeit a short one – many children joined the labour market at a young age. However, it’s clear that a different meaning was attached to this stage of life. Ariès was right in saying that children were often seen as incomplete adults. Generally speaking, they were marginal figures and were not considered an important part of society.12

这未必会影响父母对60孩子可爱一面的欣赏，但却会影响人们对孩子可爱一面的认知。前现代欧洲人往往不喜欢看到孩子爬行，因为这会让人联想到动物的动作。13因此，即使孩子们可爱的外表和天真的天性被认可，他们仍然会受到矛盾的对待。

This didn’t necessarily affect parents’ enjoyment of their 60children’s cuteness, but it did have an impact on how it was perceived. Pre-modern Europeans tended not to like seeing children crawl, because it recalled the movements of animals.13 So even when children’s cute appearance and innocence were recognised, they were still treated with ambivalence.

存在这种矛盾的态度并不奇怪；毕竟，每个父母都知道，孩子可能随和，也可能固执，可能可爱，也可能令人沮丧。孩子的不成熟当然是一种生理现象，但我们围绕这一事实构建的文化却在不断变化。在前现代和近代早期的欧洲，父母爱他们的孩子，同时也明白他们可能活不长。孩子可能消耗家庭资源，也可能增加家庭的安全感。对孩子滑稽行为的欣赏与人们对子女不朽灵魂的担忧之间存在着冲突。基于所有这些原因，似乎很明显，孩子天真和可爱的概念比我们想象的更加现代。14

It’s not surprising that such contradictory attitudes existed; after all, every parent knows that children can be accommodating or stubborn, adorable or frustrating. The immaturity of children is, of course, a biological condition, but the culture we weave around this fact changes. In pre- and early-modern Europe parents loved their children, while also understanding that they might not live long. Children could be a drain on resources or could add to the family’s security. Enjoyment of childish antics was in tension with the concern that people felt for their offspring’s immortal souls. For all these reasons, it seems clear that the concepts of childish innocence and cuteness are more modern than we think.14

艺术中涌现出可爱的孩子

Cute children emerge in art

一千年前的日本社会与欧洲截然不同。《枕草子》体现了平安时代文学对女性关怀的重要性，而《百兽图》则体现了日本宗教和公共生活中对嬉闹的欣赏。尽管欧洲也有丘比特，但现代可爱审美的形成却又花了600年的时间。

Japanese society a thousand years ago was very different from that of Europe. The Pillow Book testifies to the importance of women’s concerns in Heian-era literature, while the appreciation of playfulness in Japanese religious and public life is evident in the Scroll of Frolicking Animals. Although Europe had its cupids, the development of the modern cute aesthetic took another 600 years.

如上所述，十八世纪之前欧洲的大多数儿童肖像画都强调了儿童在家族中的社会地位。有时与儿童肖像画一起出现的动物也蕴含着象征意义。例如，孩子手中牵着的金翅雀强调了孩子的基督教教养，而儿童的面部表情则往往反映出他们未来的成年地位，而非其可爱程度。 61

As noted above, most child portraits in Europe before the eighteenth century emphasised the social position of children within the family line. The animals that sometimes appeared with them were imbued with symbolism. A goldfinch held in a child’s hand, for instance, emphasised the child’s Christian upbringing,15 while children’s faces tended to reflect their future adult status rather than their cuteness.16 61

虽然当时心理写实的儿童肖像画相对罕见，但也有一些例外。在索福尼斯巴·安圭索拉（约1532-1625年）的《棋局》（1555年）中，一个七岁左右的女孩带着顽皮的表情看着姐姐输掉一场棋局。安圭索拉有时被誉为文艺复兴时期第一位重要的女性画家，但她被禁止像男性画家那样学习解剖学，因此她转而从个人经历入手，并变得非常擅长描绘儿童和青少年的情绪状态。17

Although psychologically realistic portraits of children were relatively rare at this time, there are a few exceptions. In The Chess Game (1555) by Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1532–1625), a girl aged around seven wears a mischievous expression as she watches her sister lose a chess match. Sometimes described as the first major female painter of the Renaissance, Anguissola was barred from studying anatomy like her male counterparts, so she turned to her personal experience and became extraordinarily adept at depicting the emotional state of children and adolescents.17

为了深入了解《棋局》，我咨询了艺术家兼艺术教育家末永幸步，她曾担任我研究生时期的研究助理。姐妹俩僵硬的身躯令她印象深刻。“她们的姿势像机器人一样，”她说，“但小女孩的面部表情观察得很清楚，她手放在桌子上的方式也有点别扭，就像一个真正的孩子。” 安圭索拉走在了时代的前列；当时的艺术家们才刚刚开始习惯于描绘写实的儿童，而且有些人技艺高超。成年男性——即使是那些依靠精准观察才能获得职业发展的艺术家——对孩子的兴趣也并不大。

For insight into The Chess Game I turned to Yukiho Suenaga, an artist and arts educator who had been my research assistant as a graduate student. She was struck by the stiffness of the sisters’ bodies. ‘They pose like robots,’ she said, ‘but the facial expression of the little girl is well observed, and the way her hand rests on the table is a bit awkward, like a real child’s.’ Anguissola was ahead of her time; artists were only just getting used to painting children realistically, and some were better at it than others. Adult men – even artists whose careers depended on accurate observation – simply weren’t that interested in children.

约翰·洛克（1632-1704）和让-雅克·卢梭（1712-1778）等哲学家的启蒙思想标志着人们对儿童看法的彻底转变。18洛克将儿童视为“白板”（tabula rasa ），这使得儿童作为个体而重要，而不仅仅是不完美的成年人。与此同时，卢梭坚持认为应该允许儿童按照其天性行事。这两位思想家的共同影响创造了一种新的儿童观念。人们不再只看到他们未来的成年期，而是开始将他们视为个体，并珍视他们的纯真。然后，其他事情也发生了变化：父母开始认为他们的孩子应该幸福。

The Enlightenment ideas of philosophers such as John Locke (1632–1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) marked a sea change in how people thought about children.18 Locke’s concept of the child as a ‘blank slate’ (tabula rasa) made the child important as an individual, not merely as an imperfect adult. Rousseau, meanwhile, insisted that children should be allowed to act according to their nature. The combined influence of these two thinkers created a new idea of the child. Rather than seeing only their future adulthood, people started to look at them as individuals and to value their innocence. Then something else changed: parents began to think that their children should be happy.

在传统的农业社会中，童年与幸福无关。孩子们虽然玩得开心，但认为他们62天生快乐，或者父母有责任让他们快乐的想法并不普遍。父母通常会通过严厉的管教，向子女灌输道德和服从的观念。19

In traditional agricultural societies, childhood was not associated with happiness. Children had fun, but the idea that they 62were naturally cheerful, or that parents had a responsibility to make them happy, wasn’t common. Typically parents sought to instil morality and obedience in their offspring, often through harsh discipline.19

彼得·勃鲁盖尔创作于1560年的画作《儿童游戏》描绘了200多个儿童玩着80多种不同的游戏；他们玩洋娃娃、举办模拟婚礼、用皮带牵着玩具动物，甚至吹猪膀胱做气球。然而，只有少数孩子面带微笑，尽管许多孩子都圆脸，但勃鲁盖尔笔下的孩子们并不遵循洛伦兹的“儿童模式”。他们看起来一点也不可爱。在我看来，这幅作品就像一幅中世纪绘画，画中的孩子看起来更像成年人。事实上，考虑到它的主题，它的基调出奇地阴郁。

Pieter Bruegel’s 1560 painting Children’s Games shows more than 200 children playing more than eighty different games; they play with dolls, stage mock weddings, drag toy animals on leashes and blow into a pig’s bladder to make a balloon. However, only a few of them are smiling and although many have round faces, Bruegel’s children don’t follow Lorenz’s Kindchenschema. They simply don’t look cute. To me, the work has the feel of a medieval painting in which children look more like adults. In fact, considering its subject matter, its tone is surprisingly sombre.

渐渐地，尽管父母们仍然重视纪律和服从，但他们开始接受现代观念，认为孩子的幸福不仅对家庭有益，也对他们的未来至关重要。20 1749年，英国哲学家大卫·哈特利写道：“成年人最自然的欢笑似乎就是孩子们犯的小错误和小傻事。” 21

Gradually, although they continued to place importance on discipline and obedience, parents came around to the modern idea that children’s happiness was both good for the family and important for their future.20 In 1749 the British philosopher David Hartley wrote: ‘The most natural occasions of mirth and laughter in adults seem to be the little mistakes and follies of children.’21

十八、十九世纪现代童年观念的兴起，背后是几场社会变革。教育的重要性得到强调，儿童被尽可能地减少在幼年时期就投入工作，这使得他们从经济资产变成了负担。因此，父母们试图限制家庭规模，因为养育孩子现在变成了花钱而不是赚钱。婴儿死亡率的逐渐下降也助长了这一趋势。22最后，文学和艺术领域的浪漫主义运动（十八世纪末至十九世纪中叶）传播了儿童本质上纯洁无瑕的观念。就这样，随着云端嬉戏丘比特的形象逐渐式微，一种描绘快乐儿童的新潮流开始了，最终催生了后来被称为“可爱”的审美。63

Several social changes underlay the emergence of the modern idea of childhood in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The importance of education was emphasised, and children were less often put to work at as young an age as possible, which turned them from an economic asset into a liability. Parents consequently sought to limit family size, since children now cost money instead of earning it. Gradually decreasing infant mortality aided this decision.22 Finally, the Romantic movement (late eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century) in literature and art spread the idea that children are essentially pure and innocent. In this way, as the popularity of playful cupids floating in the clouds waned, a new trend for the portrayal of happy individual children began, which eventually led to the aesthetic that came to be called cute. 63

这种新的美学通过十七、十八世纪的肖像画发展起来。23尤其是十八世纪的英国画家，他们的作品中始终如一地描绘了天真无邪的童年形象，与当时的社会潮流保持同步。24他们的画作可以作为卢梭文本的插图，例如《爱弥儿》，这是一篇关于教育的论文，卢梭在书中建议用玩具和游戏来抚养孩子。25 这样的例子有很多，但其中一些尤其具有标志性。

This new aesthetic developed through portraiture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.23 Eighteenth-century British painters in particular created a consistent image of innocent childhood in their work that kept up with the current social trends.24 Their paintings could have been used as illustrations for Rousseau’s texts, such as Emile, a treatise on education in which he recommended raising children with toys and play.25 There are many examples, but a few are especially iconic.

托马斯·庚斯博罗的《蓝色男孩》创作于1770年左右，到19世纪初已成为最受欢迎的童年肖像画，其复制品需求旺盛。母亲们不仅喜欢男孩可爱的脸庞，也喜欢他那套复古的蓝色西装——这幅肖像创作时，这种西装已经过时了一个世纪。26

Painted around 1770, Thomas Gainsborough’s Blue Boy was the most popular image of childhood by the beginning of the nineteenth century, with reproductions of the work in high demand. Mothers loved not only the boy’s cute face, but also the retro look of his blue suit, a century out of fashion when the portrait was painted.26

至少有一位现代母亲对这幅画有类似的反应。当我向艺术教育家末永雪穗（Yukiho Suenaga）询问这幅画时，她反应如此热烈，令我感到惊讶。“这男孩太帅了！”她说，“他简直可以成为男子乐队的成员！我能感受到他柔软的肌肤。” 但雪穗对男孩的身体并不那么感兴趣。“我把手放在他的脸上，”她说，“这个可爱的男孩突然变成了一个中年男人。他的小腿肌肉发达，肚子鼓鼓的，大腿也太粗了。我在画里看到了两个不同的人：一个男孩的脸，一个成年男人的身躯。” 当时的画家仍在摸索如何真实地描绘儿童。

At least one modern-day mother has responded similarly to this painting. When I asked the arts educator Yukiho Suenaga about it, I was surprised by the fervour of her response. ‘This boy is so handsome!’ she said. ‘He could be a member of a boy band! I can feel his soft skin.’ But Yukiho wasn’t so enthused about the boy’s body. ‘I put my hand over his face,’ she said, ‘and this cute boy suddenly became a middle-aged man. There’s too much muscle on his calves, his belly is quite chubby, and his thighs are too thick. I see two different people in this painting: a boy’s face on the body of an adult man.’ The painters of this time were still in the process of working out how to realistically depict children.

此外，十八世纪浪漫主义肖像画中天真无邪的孩童形象往往被高高在上，以至于显得格格不入。引领西方艺术作品的主流审美是美；而当时肖像画中常见的纯真无邪的孩童形象，缺乏我们如今所熟知的那种亲切、亲切的温暖——那种可爱。

In addition, the Romantic image of the innocent child reflected in eighteenth-century portraiture was often so highly elevated that it seems not quite of this world. The major aesthetic that guided Western works of art was the beautiful; and the pure, innocent children who most often appear in portraits of this time lacked the familiar, approachable warmth that we now associate with cuteness.

64约书亚·雷诺兹爵士是对这种全新、纯真童年形象贡献最大的艺术家。与他那个时代的大多数艺术家不同，他欣赏并关注孩子气的行为。他试图取悦那些为他坐下的儿童模特，而他的同时代人则更有可能鞭打他们，以鼓励他们静坐。27雷诺兹创作于18世纪80年代的肖像画《纯真年代》描绘了一个年轻女孩独自坐在公园般的环境中，双手紧抱胸前，裸露的脚趾从白色连衣裙下露出。艺术史学家安妮·希格内特指出，这幅画不妨命名为“纯真之创造”，因为在18世纪之前，艺术作品中并不存在这种天真无邪的儿童形象。28

Sir Joshua Reynolds was the artist who contributed the 64most to this new, innocent image of childhood. Unlike most artists of his period, he enjoyed childish behaviour and paid attention to it. He sought to amuse his child models when they sat for him, while his contemporaries were more likely to have them whipped to encourage them to sit still.27 Reynolds’s portrait The Age of Innocence from the 1780s shows a young girl sitting alone in a park-like setting, her hands clasped to her chest and her bare toes poking out from under a white dress. The art historian Anne Higonnet notes that the painting might as well be titled ‘The invention of innocence’, because before the eighteenth century such images of the naturally innocent child didn’t exist in art.28

我们理所当然地认为孩子比成人更天真，但这种观念的形成非常缓慢。自古以来，儿童就是成人世界里显而易见的一部分。贫困儿童被送去工作；富裕儿童则陪同长辈去展览和剧院。即使孩子们越来越被视为纯真无邪，他们仍然会接触到成人的行为，因此，天真与成熟之间的隔阂需要时间才能形成。举一个现在难以想象的例子：直到20世纪初，孩子们在酒馆里喝酒喝到酩酊大醉不仅很常见，而且也被人们接受。儿童哑剧经常包含关于酒精的笑话，似乎没有人对此提出异议，直到1904年，一位评论家最终谴责伦敦德鲁里巷皇家剧院的一部哑剧中的饮酒场景，认为它不适合年轻观众。29

We take it for granted that children are more innocent than adults, but this idea only took hold very gradually. From time immemorial, children had been a visible part of the adult world. Poor children were sent out to work; rich children accompanied their elders to exhibitions and the theatre. Even as children were increasingly seen as pure and naive, they were still exposed to adult behaviour, and for this reason the barrier between innocence and experience took time to develop. To take one example that is hard to imagine now, children drinking in taverns to the point of inebriation were not only common but also accepted, right up until the turn of the twentieth century. Children’s pantomimes often included jokes about alcohol, and no one seems to have objected until 1904, when a critic finally decried the drinking scenes in a pantomime at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane in London as being inappropriate for a young audience.29

自中世纪以来，那些展现出与成人相关技能天赋的孩子一直备受青睐。30像沃尔夫冈·阿马德乌斯·莫扎特这样的神童在欧洲巡回演出，儿童演员在舞台上大放异彩。威廉·亨利·韦斯特·贝蒂是一位儿童演员，他在 19 世纪初的伦敦舞台上扮演了65从哈姆雷特到罗密欧等成人角色，获得了巨大的成功。他非常受欢迎，以至于人们制作了一系列印有他面容的产品，包括纪念章、扇子、纸娃娃和鼻烟壶。31神童之所以受到崇拜，是因为他们拥有成人般的能力，但外表却很稚嫩。

Children who showed talent in skills that were associated with adults had been favoured since medieval times.30 Child prodigies like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart toured Europe and child actors were prominent on the stage. William Henry West Betty, a child actor who experienced great success on the London stage in the early nineteenth century playing adult 65roles from Hamlet to Romeo, was so popular that a range of products bearing his visage were produced, including souvenir medals, fans, paper dolls and snuffboxes.31 Child prodigies were adored, due to the gap between their adult-like abilities and their childish appearance.

十九世纪，席卷而来的社会变革意味着童年更加受到重视。参与工作的儿童越来越少，上学的儿童越来越多。儿童死亡率开始下降，出生率也随之下降。随着人们迁往城市工作，核心家庭变得越来越普遍。父母开始将大量精力投入到他们少数更有可能存活下来的孩子身上。尤其是母子关系变得更加亲密，也更加理想化。32

During the nineteenth century sweeping social changes meant childhood was more highly valued. Fewer children worked, and more went to school. Child mortality rates began to fall, and so did birthrates. Nuclear families became more common as people moved to cities for work. Parents began to lavish attention on the few children they had who were more likely to survive. The mother–child relationship in particular became closer and more idealised.32

随着中产阶级的崛起，童年纯真的概念日益重要，然而，任何形式的早熟成人行为都可能威胁到它脆弱的本质。19世纪40年代中期至60年代中期，英国讽刺杂志《笨拙》（Punch）刊登了约翰·利奇（John Leech）的漫画，描绘的是那些“非常敏锐”的孩子，他们酗酒、赌博、说俚语，行为举止也像成年人一样放荡。33利奇笔下那些远非可爱的孩子表明，孩子行为举止像成年人的现象开始被赋予负面联想，因为它破坏了“孩子应该与成人世界隔绝”的新观念。

With the rise of the middle class, the concept of childhood innocence became increasingly important, yet its delicacy could be threatened by any form of precocious, adult behaviour. Between the mid-1840s and the mid-1860s the satirical English magazine Punch included John Leech’s cartoons about ‘Very Acute’ children who drank, gambled, used slang and exhibited louche adult behaviour.33 Leech’s far-from-adorable children show that the phenomenon of children acting like adults had started to take on negative associations because it undermined the new idea that they should be separated from the adult world.

在浪漫主义时期，塞缪尔·泰勒·柯尔律治、威廉·华兹华斯和查尔斯·兰姆等作家发展了卢梭最早倡导的原始儿童的概念——未受社会化、纯洁、亲近自然。华兹华斯在1804年宣称：“当我们还是婴儿时，天堂就在我们身边！” 34巧妙地用洛克天真无邪的“白板”形象取代了需要管教和指导的小罪人的形象。儿童开始代表成年人已经失去的优秀品质。

In the Romantic period, writers like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and Charles Lamb developed the notion of the primitive child – unsocialised, pure, close to nature – first espoused by Rousseau. ‘Heaven lies about us in our infancy!’ Wordsworth proclaimed in 1804,34 neatly replacing the image of little sinners requiring discipline and instruction with Locke’s innocent ‘blank slates’. Children began to represent desirable qualities that adults had lost.

表现孩子天真品质的许多主题都在十八世纪的儿童66肖像画中得到了发展。例如，像庚斯博罗的《蓝色男孩》一样，描绘穿着戏服的儿童，使他们看起来永恒。35雷诺兹的《扮演亨利八世的克鲁少爷》（1775 年）描绘了一个打扮成同名国王的小男孩，他自豪地摆出姿势，显然很享受，这为构图增添了可爱感。当我与末永雪穗讨论这幅肖像时，她指出他的姿势有些尴尬。尽管他很热情，但年轻的克鲁少爷似乎不太确定国王应该如何摆姿势。

Many of the motifs that presented these qualities of childish innocence had been developed in eighteenth-century child 66portraiture. For example, depicting young children dressed in costumes, as Gainsborough had done with Blue Boy, made them seem timeless.35 Reynolds’s Master Crewe as Henry VIII (1775) depicts a young boy dressed as the eponymous king, his evident enjoyment as he proudly poses adding to the cuteness of the composition. When I discussed this portrait with Yukiho Suenaga, she pointed out a slight awkwardness in his stance. In spite of his enthusiasm, young Master Crewe seems slightly unsure of how a king is supposed to pose.

在男孩脚边嬉闹的小狗是另一个新的比喻。让孩子与动物并肩而立，让孩子显得不那么成熟，反而更贴近自然。36综合来看，我认为这幅画是十八世纪最可爱的肖像画。

The puppies frolicking at the boy’s feet are another new trope. Posing children alongside animals made the child seem less mature and more at one with nature.36 All things considered, the painting has my vote for the cutest portrait of the eighteenth century.

雷诺兹的构图假设观看这幅画的成年人希望看到的是幼稚和笨拙，而非飘逸的完美。这表明儿童正成为怀旧的象征；十八世纪标志着一种持久趋势的开始，成年人消费童真形象，以此作为对自身逝去青春的间接享受。37 现代可爱美学在一个世纪后出现，当时儿童的形象不再代表近乎神圣的纯洁，而是更加贴近现实生活。雷诺兹饰演的亨利八世的克鲁少校预示了这一发展，他通过添加嬉戏的动物和笨拙的热情等俏皮元素，摆脱了童年纯真的高雅美感。

Reynolds’ composition assumes that the adults who would view the painting wanted to see immaturity and awkwardness rather than ethereal perfection. It shows that children were becoming figures of nostalgia; the eighteenth century marked the start of an enduring trend that saw adults consuming images of childish innocence as a vicarious enjoyment of their own lost youth.37 The modern cute aesthetic emerged a century later, when the child went from representing an almost holy purity to something more grounded in real life. Reynolds’s Master Crewe as Henry VIII foreshadowed this development, moving away from the elevated beauty of childhood innocence by adding playful elements like frolicking animals and awkward enthusiasm.

虽然人们看待儿童方式的转变显然是后来“可爱文化”兴起的关键，但克鲁先生脚边的那些小狗提醒我，动物也产生了影响。幸运的是，我找到了斯蒂芬妮·霍华德-史密斯，她也是一位“可爱研究”的学者，其研究重点是18世纪的动物可爱。从斯蒂芬妮那里，我了解到，上流社会对哈巴狗的喜爱起源于67中国和日本，并在对哈巴狗扁平迷人脸庞的狂热中达到了顶峰。38它们不仅作为宠物很受欢迎，还被制成瓷器迷你模型。

Although the change in the way people viewed children was clearly key to the later rise of cute culture, those puppies at Master Crewe’s feet reminded me that animals also had an influence. Luckily I found Stephanie Howard-Smith, a fellow Cute Studies academic whose research focuses on animal cuteness in the eighteenth century. From Stephanie, I learned that the upper-class penchant for lapdogs, which had originated in 67China and Japan, found its peak in a fad for the flat, charming faces of pugs.38 They were popular not only as pets, but also as porcelain miniatures.

斯蒂芬妮发现，18 世纪养哈巴狗、收集这些可爱狗狗瓷器模型的女性，经常用儿语哄着它们，并热衷于收集更多，却被指责自我放纵，将自己的利益置于子女和家庭之上。39即使在今天，对可爱感兴趣的人有时也会被指责幼稚、幼稚，逃避成年人的责任。40要弄清这是怎么发生的，让我们从旧世界走到新世界，因为我们今天熟悉的可爱审美，其根源在于 19 世纪的美国。

Stephanie has found that eighteenth-century women who owned pugs and collected porcelain models of these cute dogs, often cooing to them in baby talk and passionately acquiring more, were accused of self-indulgence and charged with putting their own interests ahead of their children and family.39 Even today, people interested in cuteness are sometimes accused of being childish or infantile and turning away from adult respon-sibilities.40 To find out how this happened, let us move from the old world to the new, for the cute aesthetic we are familiar with today has its roots in nineteenth-century America.

巴纳姆的婴儿秀

Barnum’s baby shows

传奇艺人PT·巴纳姆创立了以自己名字命名的著名马戏团，对19世纪美国流行文化产生了重大影响。41 19世纪50年代，为了宣传他的美国博物馆，他组织了花卉、犬类和家禽展览，突然想到公众会蜂拥而至，参加一场以婴儿外貌评判的比赛。然而，像植物、宠物或牲畜一样展示婴儿，直接触及了维多利亚时代家庭价值观的核心，这种价值观认为母子之间的纽带是神圣的。这种做法迅速遭到反击，批评者谴责那些“厚颜无耻地将婴儿推到公众面前”的母亲，认为是对母性神圣性的侵犯。42

P. T. Barnum, the legendary showman who founded a famous circus that bore his name, was a major influence on American popular culture in the nineteenth century.41 In the 1850s, while organising flower, dog and poultry shows to advertise his American Museum, he was struck by the thought that the public would flock to a competition that judged babies on their features. However, displaying babies like plants, pets or livestock struck directly at the core of Victorian family values, which considered the bond between mother and child to be sacred. Pushback was swift, with critics decrying mothers who thrust their babies ‘unblushingly into the public eye’ as violators of the sanctity of motherhood.42

尽管饱受批评，但公众似乎并不认同。巴纳姆于1855年举办的首届婴儿秀吸引了超过6万名观众，每人支付25美分即可观看143名参赛选手的表演。43四分之三的观众是女性；她们观看婴儿秀的真正原因正是这些比赛受到批评的原因——为了观看一场公开展示通常不为公众所知事物的盛会。4468当时，大众商业娱乐活动是为男性观众设计的。45巴纳姆不仅打造了女性想看的活动，还煞费苦心地让她们在公共场合感到舒适自在。他聘请了一个女性评审团来评判婴儿秀，并在主展览空间旁边设立了一个由护士管理的托儿所，禁止男性进入。46

Despite this criticism, the general public seemed to disagree. Barnum’s first baby show, held in 1855, attracted more than 60,000 spectators, who each paid twenty-five cents to view the 143 contestants.43 Women comprised three-quarters of the guests; they came to the baby shows for the very reason these competitions were criticised – to witness a spectacle that 68openly displayed something usually hidden from public view.44 At this time, mass commercial entertainment was designed for a male audience.45 Barnum not only created events that women wanted to see; he took pains to make them feel comfortable going out in public. He engaged a panel of women to judge the baby shows, and there was a nursery next to the main exhibition space that was run by a nurse, where men were forbidden.46

19世纪下半叶婴儿秀的兴起，体现了人们对母子观念的转变。它们在乡村的农业集市和城市的剧院里变得司空见惯。它们被设置在展览厅，并用于筹款活动，而儿童杂志则指导女孩们如何为她们的娃娃举办婴儿秀。47

The proliferation of baby shows throughout the second half of the nineteenth century demonstrates changing attitudes about motherhood and children. They became commonplace at agricultural fairs in the countryside and at theatres in cities. They were mounted at exhibition halls and used for fundraising events, while children’s magazines instructed girls on how to hold baby shows for their dolls.47

在欧洲，婴儿秀被视为典型的美国式活动，略显粗俗，但仍然吸引了众多观众。48它们代表着一种致力于享乐、奇观和利润的新型消费文化的兴起。这是兜售假万能药的专利药秀、廉价博物馆的奇异玩意儿以及美洲原住民等部落民族的民族志展览的黄金时代，所有这些展览都收藏在巴纳姆的美国博物馆。然而，婴儿秀也成为制造商展示摇篮和婴儿车等新产品的机会；母亲们欣然接受了这些新产品以及它们提供的炫耀婴儿的机会。19世纪末，《纽约时报》将妇女推着新买的婴儿车在城市街道上游行称为“名副其实的婴儿秀”。49母亲们掌控了局面，亲自展示她们的婴儿。

In Europe, baby shows were seen as distinctly American and slightly vulgar, but drew in the crowds nonetheless.48 They represented the rise of a new consumer culture that was dedicated to pleasure, spectacle and profit. This was the golden age of the patent medicine show that hawked fake cure-alls, the sideshow oddities of the dime museum and ethnographic exhibitions of tribal peoples like Native Americans, all of which were included in Barnum’s American Museum. Baby shows, however, became an opportunity for manufacturers to present new products like bassinets and baby carriages; mothers embraced these new items and the opportunities they afforded to show off their babies. At the end of the nineteenth century The New York Times referred to the parade of women pushing their newly acquired baby carriages on city streets as a ‘veritable baby show’.49 Mothers had taken the reins and were displaying their babies by themselves.

十八世纪的肖像画完美地展现了孩子纯洁无瑕的理念，这使得母子之间的纽带显得格外私密，甚至神圣。然而，婴儿秀却为女性提供了一种新的选择，打破69了过去围绕育儿的道德严肃性，教会她们将自己的孩子视为快乐的源泉。50从这个意义上讲，婴儿秀是美国“可爱”文化发展的关键事件。然而，尽管全国性和地方性报纸上都刊登了对这些婴儿秀的评论，我却从未找到一篇称这些婴儿“可爱”的文章。“可爱”这个词当时还没有获得其现代意义。

The idea that children were pure and innocent, expressed so well in eighteenth-century portraiture, made the bond between mother and child seem deeply private, even holy, but baby shows gave women an alternative to the moral seriousness 69that had surrounded child-rearing by teaching them to see their own babies as sources of pleasure.50 In this sense, they were a key event in the development of American cute culture. However, although reviews of the shows were splashed all over national and local newspapers, I have yet to locate a single one that called the babies ‘cute’. The word hadn’t yet attained its modern meaning.

即使是那些批评公开展示婴儿的评论，也对参赛者赞不绝口。这些婴儿被描述为英俊、美丽、漂亮、聪明、五官精致。51奖项按年龄分类颁发，包括双胞胎、三胞胎和最胖婴儿（在婴儿死亡率高的时代，这被认为是健康的标志）。然而，一等奖颁给了“最漂亮”的婴儿，而不是最可爱的婴儿。52

Even reviews that criticised the public display of infants described the contestants in complimentary terms. The babies were referred to as handsome, beautiful, pretty, smart and fine-featured.51 Prizes were given in categories according to age, and included twins, triplets and the fattest baby (considered a sign of health in an age of high infant mortality). First prize, however, went to the ‘finest’ baby – not the cutest.52

《纽约时报》的一篇专栏文章这样评价一位婴儿秀的冠军：“他的体态完美地展现了婴儿般的优雅。” 53十九世纪中叶，对儿童的正面描绘仍然强调他们的天真和纯洁，将他们与高尚的审美观联系起来，而非日常的可爱。这让我不禁思考，“可爱”一词的含义是否从“聪明”变为“可爱”时，是否已经到达了一个转折点。随着人们对一种无人提及的情感的兴趣逐渐增长，人们需要一个新的词来捕捉它。但为什么是“可爱”呢？

A New York Times column said of a champion in a baby show: ‘His form is the very perfection of infantile grace.’53 In the mid-nineteenth century positive depictions of children continued to emphasise their innocence and purity, associating them with the elevated aesthetic of beauty rather than the everyday quality of cuteness. This led me to wonder whether a tipping point was reached when the meaning of the word ‘cute’ changed from clever to adorable. After the slow growth of interest in a feeling that nobody had bothered to name, a new word was needed to capture it. But why was that word ‘cute’?

在19世纪50年代，这个词仍然是“聪明”的同义词，指的是行为而非外表。尽管婴儿被称为“聪明”或“看起来聪明”，但他们并没有表现出聪明的行为，所以不被称为“可爱”。54巴纳姆的表演是新美学创造的重要一步，最终促使该词获得了其现代含义。但是，既然已经存在完全适用的“可爱”或“可爱”等词，为什么“可爱”会流行起来呢？这种不断发展的美国审美观需要一种额外的元素，一种70顽皮的热情，而这种热情可以用一个象征聪明的词来表达。

In the 1850s the word was still a synonym for clever, and applied to behaviour rather than appearance. Although babies were called ‘bright’ or ‘intelligent-looking’, they did not display clever behaviour, so they were not called ‘cute’.54 Barnum’s shows were a significant step in the creation of a new aesthetic that eventually prompted the word to attain its modern meaning. But why did ‘cute’ take hold, when the perfectly serviceable ‘adorable’ or ‘lovely’ already existed? Something about this evolving American aesthetic required an additional element, a 70mischievous exuberance that was captured by a word that connoted cleverness.

婴儿秀是文化变迁的标志，最终引发了萌宠的盛行。19世纪70年代至20世纪30年代，许多事情都发生了变化。童工改革以及义务教育的推进，使得各个阶层的儿童，正如社会学家薇薇安娜·泽利泽（Viviana Zelizer）所说，变得“经济上一文不值，情感上却无价”。在教育家、女权主义者、心理学家和工会领袖等各类社会改革者的共同努力下，儿童应该免于承担成人责任的理念逐渐传播开来。55就这样，那些曾经被成人边缘化的儿童，成为了文化的中心。56

The baby shows were a sign of a cultural shift that would eventually cause a boom in cuteness. Between the 1870s and the 1930s many things changed. Child-labour reforms, along with the push for compulsory education, saw children of all classes become, as the sociologist Viviana Zelizer put it, ‘economically worthless but emotionally priceless’. The idea that children should be protected from adult responsibilities gradually spread through the concentrated efforts of a variety of social reformers, from educators and feminists to psychologists and union leaders.55 In this way, children who had previously been pushed to the margins by adults became central to culture.56

因此，童年变成了值得珍惜的东西，而不是需要尽快度过的东西。当成年人开始将童年视为逃避成年压力的心理避难所时，他们便会通过间接地享受童年的淘气和嬉闹来获得快乐和愉悦。57当成年人开始将童年视为沉溺于怀旧的载体时，一种新的审美观便应运而生。

Accordingly, childhood became something to value instead of something to get through as quickly as possible. When adults began to regard childhood as a psychological refuge from the pressures of adulthood, they found joy and delight by vicariously enjoying childish mischief and high jinks.57 As adults began to embrace childhood as a vehicle for indulging in their own nostalgia, a new aesthetic developed.

西格妮的猫人

Sigourney’s cat-people

在十九世纪的北美，一系列艺术主题和文学主题让“可爱”这一古老的情感得以以新的方式表达。在缓慢而不确定的诞生之后，一种新的“可爱”美学在二十世纪崛起，并征服了流行文化。安吉拉·索比是密尔沃基马凯特大学的文学学者和诗人，她思维敏锐，幽默感十足。在两篇关于早期美国“可爱”的文章中，她描述了“可爱”美学在十九世纪中期的兴起，并解释了为什么之前的时代并不公开赞美儿童的可爱。

In nineteenth-century North America a cluster of artistic motifs and literary themes allowed the age-old emotion of cuteness to be expressed in a new way. After a slow and uncertain birth, a new cute aesthetic rose up to conquer popular culture in the twentieth century. Angela Sorby is a literary scholar and poet at Marquette University in Milwaukee with a keen mind and a dry sense of humour. In two articles on early American cuteness, she described the emergence of the cute aesthetic in the mid-nineteenth century and explained why previous eras did not publicly celebrate the cuteness of children.

安吉拉指出，可爱在71二十世纪初文化中的惊人崛起，是发生在成年人开始将孩子视为快乐的源泉，而不是即将下地狱的小罪人之后。她更深层次的洞见是，孩子们被欣赏为一种奇观，可以在家庭之外与他人分享。这种从私人领域到公共领域的转变，是解释可爱如何席卷流行文化的关键一步，而她的分析则基于一位鲜为人知的默默无闻的作家。

Angela has shown that the spectacular rise of cuteness in 71early-twentieth-century culture only occurred after adults began to consider their children as a source of pleasure, instead of as little sinners who were in danger of going to hell. Her deeper insight is that children became appreciated as a spectacle that could be shared with others beyond a domestic setting. This movement from the private to the public sphere is a key step in explaining how cuteness was able to take over popular culture, and her analysis hinges on an obscure writer of whom few people have heard.

莉迪亚·西格妮（1791-1865）是美国独立战争和南北战争时期最多产的作家之一，也是十九世纪美国女性的典范。58在女性与儿童关系被偶像化的时代，她体现了维多利亚时代的感伤主义和道德正直。59从她童年时期对洋娃娃和猫咪的鲜明反应中，我们可以看出她对新兴的可爱审美的尝试。

Lydia Sigourney (1791–1865) was one of the most prolific authors in the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War, and a paragon of nineteenth-century American womanhood.58 At a time when the relationship between women and children was idolised, she embodied Victorian sentimentalism and moral rectitude.59 We can see her tentative forays into the nascent aesthetic of cuteness in her contrasting childhood reactions to dolls and cats.

西格妮在自传《生命书信》中透露，她小时候几乎没有玩具，她写道：“在共和国成立初期，我们的商船并没有用德国和法国的玩具来装运货物。那些能睁开眼睛、活动关节、发出呻吟声的娃娃在当时还不为人所知，甚至可能被认为是巫术的产物。” 这位初出茅庐的作家常常把她自制的几个娃娃排成一排，进行演讲，谴责它们的缺点，并“强调各种道德义务”。这是一个揭示18世纪后期普遍存在的对待儿童态度的轶事。60

In her autobiography Letters of Life, Sigourney reveals that she had few toys as a child, writing: ‘In those early days of the republic our merchant vessels did not swell their freight with the toys of Germany and France. Dolls that opened their eyes, moved their joints, and moaned were unknown, and might have been deemed the work of necromancy.’ The budding author used to line up her few home-made dolls and deliver lectures in which she reproved their faults and ‘enforced a variety of moral obligations’. It’s a revealing anecdote about the attitude towards children that was prevalent in the late eighteenth century.60

西格妮与她的猫咪关系截然不同。她儿时曾创作过一部名为《关于猫咪》（Concerning Ye Catte）的滑稽短剧，旨在为猫咪辩护，反驳人们对它们“自私、谄媚或虚伪”的指责。61这位年轻的作家指出，虽然狗会受到它们所跟随的男人的称赞，但猫咪却一直待在室内，与女人相处，它们的一举一动不太引人注意。62有趣的是，同样的理论也被用来72解释为什么猫咪在200年后在互联网上如此流行；它们可爱的滑稽动作大多发生在主人的视线范围内——直到网络视频的普及。63

Sigourney had a quite different relationship with her cats. As a child, she wrote a comical sketch called ‘Concerning Ye Catte’, which undertook to defend cats from accusations that they were ‘selfish, fawning or hypocritical’.61 The young writer points out that while dogs are praised by the men they follow around, cats remain inside with women and their actions are less visible.62 Interestingly, this same theory has been proposed 72to explain why cats were ascendant on the Internet 200 years later; their cute antics took place largely within sight of their owners – until the spread of online videos.63

西格妮出生于1791年，在她成长的年代，写实的玩偶甚至会被视为恶魔，但她对猫咪的热情辩护，却与如今爱猫人士对宠物的看法如出一辙。西格妮教她的猫咪用后腿站立，并用鼻子蹭她伸出的手，而她刻意采用古风笔触描写母猫和小猫的笔法，更能展现她对可爱美学的探索：“她和它们欢快地玩耍，适时地蹦蹦跳跳。但她也尊重它们的举止，如果它们不听话或惹她不高兴，她就会张开爪子打它们的小耳朵。还有其他四足动物会做这样的事吗？” 64西格妮既将她的“猫人”拟人化，又发现它们身上兼具嬉戏和自律，这在当时实属罕见。

Born in 1791, Sigourney grew up in an age when realistic dolls may well have been considered demonic, yet her spirited defence of cats exactly matches the way that cat-lovers think of their pets today. Sigourney taught her cats to stand on their hind legs and nuzzle her proffered hand, and the way she writes of a mother cat and her kittens (in a deliberately archaic style) provides a further insight into her tentative steps towards the cute aesthetic: ‘She playeth merrily with them, and frisketh at proper times. Yet hath she due regard unto their manners, and boxeth their small ears with a wide-spread paw, if they disobey or displease her. Is there any other four-footed creature that doeth these things?’64 Sigourney both anthropomorphises her ‘cat-people’ and discovers a mixture of playfulness and discipline in them that was unusual at the time.

在《人生书信》中，西格妮形容自己的童年是快乐的，但她更强调“勤奋、秩序和服从”，而非玩耍65——很明显，她不支持将可爱作为公开的奇观。当 P.T. 巴纳姆试图招募她担任他的婴儿秀的评委时，她甚至没有回应他的邀请。像西格妮这样的内战前美国人，在原罪的旧观念和天真儿童的浪漫概念之间左右为难，反对将他们视为神圣信托的东西当作奇观。66在原罪与天真的争论中，孩子是一个令人担忧的人物；不服从——无论多么轻微——都预示着孩子有遭受地狱之火的危险，而这个时期淘气孩子的照片则谴责父母监管不力。67

In Letters of Life Sigourney characterises her childhood as happy, yet she emphasises ‘industry, order and obedience’ more than play65 – and it is clear that she did not support cuteness as a public spectacle. When P. T. Barnum tried to recruit her as a judge for his baby show, she didn’t even answer his invitation. Antebellum Americans like Sigourney, torn between the older idea of original sin and the romantic concept of the innocent child, were opposed to making a spectacle of what they saw as a sacred trust.66 The child was a fraught figure in the debate between original sin and innocence; disobedience – however slight – signalled a child in danger of hellfire, while pictures of mischievous children from this period reprimanded parents for poor supervision.67

孩子调皮捣蛋总是能给父母带来一些私人乐趣，但这些时刻通常在家庭内部受到赞赏，或被记录在私人日记中。68在公开著作中，这种行为受到了严厉的批评。73根据原罪教义，不服从，无论是言语还是行为，都被视为对孩子不朽灵魂的威胁。16世纪，蒙田谴责成年人以孩子嬉闹为乐——他认为这种行为无异于“为了娱乐，像猴子一样”爱孩子。69 17世纪，道德家和教育家严厉批评那些似乎将孩子视为娱乐来源的父母，理由是这会阻碍他们发展成为理性的人和善良的基督徒。70虽然洛克和卢梭等启蒙思想家提出了相反的观点，认为孩子天生天真无邪，但他们的思想在美国却迟迟未能普及，因为福音派基督教女性在大众文化中扮演着更重要的角色。71

Childish mischief has always afforded private amusement to parents, but these moments were generally appreciated within the family or confided to private diaries.68 In public writings, such behaviour was roundly criticised. Disobedience, whether 73in word or deed, was seen as perilous to the child’s immortal soul, under the doctrine of original sin. In the sixteenth century Montaigne decried the idea of adults taking pleasure in childish frolicking – he thought such behaviour was tantamount to loving children ‘for our amusement, like monkeys’.69 In the seventeenth century moralists and educators chastised parents who seemed to regard their children as sources of entertainment, on the grounds that it stunted their development into rational beings and good Christians.70 While Enlightenment thinkers like Locke and Rousseau offered a contrasting view, presenting children as naturally innocent, their ideas were slow to take hold in the US where evangelical Christian women played a larger role in popular culture.71

维多利亚时代赋予童年一种神圣的氛围，而天真无邪不仅是儿童与成人的区别，也让他们略带神秘感。他们是珍贵的财产，随时可能被上帝收回，因此，在新的“可爱”潮流真正盛行之前，必须剥夺他们身上这种精神特质。72

The Victorians imbued childhood with an aura of sanctity, and innocence was the quality that not only separated children from adults, but also made them slightly mysterious. They were precious possessions that could be reclaimed by God at any moment, and they had to be divested of this spiritual quality before the new trend in cuteness could really take hold.72

慢慢地，一种新的世俗观念在美国兴起，认为顽皮无善无恶，而是孩子天性的一部分。孩子的缺点可能很可爱，甚至很有趣。一旦将孩子视为基督教美德的化身或缺失的倾向开始消退，孩子的淘气就可以被一笑置之。但由于十九世纪中期社会中古老的宗教价值观依然盛行，展现孩子的可爱必须谨慎处理。73

Slowly a new secular concept emerged in the US that considered naughtiness neither good nor evil, but part of a child’s nature. A child’s flaws could be charming, and even funny. Childish mischief could be laughed off once the penchant for viewing a child as either the embodiment or lack of Christian virtue started to wear off. But since the older religious values were still around in mid-nineteenth-century society, representing the cuteness of children had to be carefully managed.73

改变取决于一种思维方式的出现，这种思维方式能让成人以新的眼光看待孩子。P.T. 巴纳姆的婴儿秀将这种新颖的思维方式带入公共领域，但它也存在于纸上。1864 年，莉迪亚·西格尼出版了一本家庭轶事集《小家伙们的谚语》，其中包括一些孩子犯下的滑稽错误的故事。但她仍然没有使用“可爱”这个词——她努力寻找一种方式来描述74那些犯错的孩子，他们的错误是可爱的而不是不听话的，是有趣的而不是有罪的。她注意到，青春的美丽和孩子般的聪明，再加上天真和单纯，可以创造出一种独特而有趣的效果——简而言之，就是可爱美学。但她仍然没有想到这个词本身。

Change depended upon the emergence of a mindset that enabled adults to see children in a new light. P. T. Barnum’s baby shows brought this novel way of thinking into the public sphere, but it also existed on the page. In 1864 Lydia Sigourney published a collection of domestic anecdotes, Sayings of Little Ones, that included stories of comic childish failings. Still the word ‘cute’ is absent – she struggled to find a way of describing 74children whose missteps were endearing rather than disobedient, funny rather than sinful. She noted that a combination of youthful beauty and childish cleverness, together with naivety and simplicity, could create a unique and amusing effect74 – the cute aesthetic in a nutshell. Yet the word itself still eluded her.

当西格妮记录孩子们可爱的错误时，日本正是一个与世隔绝的隐居王国，与外界隔绝。西格妮努力将一种新的、有趣的审美与她严格的基督教原则相协调，这对日本人来说是难以理解的。日本人历来将玩乐融入艺术和文学，加上重视简朴、无常和细枝末节的传统，意味着可爱早已存在于日本文化中，而且不仅仅局限于艺术领域。在欧洲上流社会中广受欢迎的哈巴狗可能起源于中国，但它们经常被称为“日本犬”，这表明它们可能是从日本传入欧洲的。75既然我们已经了解了可爱在欧洲和美国的缓慢发展，让我们来看看同一时期日本的情况——我们先从狗说起。

While Sigourney was cataloguing the cute mistakes of children, Japan was a hermit kingdom that kept the outside world at bay. Sigourney’s struggles to reconcile a new, amusing aesthetic with her strict Christian principles wouldn’t have made sense to the Japanese. Their history of incorporating playfulness into art and literature, along with the traditions of valuing simplicity, impermanence and small things, means that cuteness had long had a presence in Japanese culture, and not only in the arts. The lapdogs that were so popular among the European upper classes may have originated in China, but they were often referred to as ‘Japanese dogs’, indicating that they may have made their way to Europe from Japan.75 Now that we’ve seen the slow development of cuteness in Europe and the US, let’s take a look at the same period in Japan – and we’ll start with dogs.

75

4

4

隐士王国里的可爱

Kawaii in the Hermit Kingdom

追溯西方文化中20世纪之前的“可爱”历史，如同漫步沙漠；除了一两片绿洲，别无他物。然而，日本却不同。“可爱”或许并非在日本艺术史上盛行，但它始终存在。如今，“可爱”如此流行，博物馆展览这类作品也屡见不鲜。

Tracing the pre-twentieth-century history of cuteness in Western culture is like wandering in a desert; except for an oasis or two, there’s not much to see. Japan, however, is different. Cuteness may not have flourished throughout Japanese art history, but it was always there. And since kawaii is so popular today, museum exhibitions that display these works are common.

几年前，我参观东京一家博物馆的“可爱江户画展”时，期待看到一些可爱的东西，但其中一件作品却让我大吃一惊。展览展出了近200件日本江户时代（1603年至1868年）的作品，墙上装饰着各种可爱的图案和主题，令人惊叹。小狗在雪地里嬉戏，身着和服的猫咪演奏着乐器。甚至连和尚和身着铠甲的76武士都被“可爱化”了。然而，真正吸引我眼球的是玻璃柜里展示的一把小折扇。

When I visited the Kawaii Edo Paintings exhibition at a Tokyo museum several years ago I was expecting to see cute things, but one of them in particular really blew me away. The exhibition displayed almost 200 works from Japan’s Edo era, which ran from 1603 to 1868, and there was an astonishing variety of cute motifs and themes adorning the walls. Puppies cavorted in the snow, and cats dressed in kimonos played musical instruments. Even Buddhist priests and armoured 76samurai were ‘cutified’. However, it was a small folding fan displayed in a glass case that caught my eye.

图 4.1：长泽萝西的《扇子上的小狗》。

Fig. 4.1: Puppy on a fan by Nagasawa Rosetsu.

十八世纪末，长泽芦津（1754-1799）在扇面上绘制了这只小狗。其简洁的画风令人着迷，但背后却蕴含着丰富的技巧。小狗裸露的腹部和松散的四肢姿势，更突显了它温顺的气质。黑白相间的勾勒（“略描”）技巧早在几个世纪前的《百兽图》中就已出现，它通过将头部置于身体前方，将视线聚焦于动物个性鲜明的面部，从而营造出透视效果。芦津放弃了写实的身体比例，转而采用圆润的线条，以捕捉小狗渴望玩耍的心情。这些技巧后来成为漫画的基础，使艺术家能够简化绘画，从而向观者传达特定的感受。1

Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754–1799) painted the puppy on the fan in the late eighteenth century. Its simplicity is captivating, but there’s a lot of technique behind it. The dog’s exposed belly and loose-limbed pose emphasise its tameness. The black-and-grey outlining (ryakugashiki), a technique that had appeared in the Scroll of Frolicking Animals centuries earlier, creates perspective by placing the head in front of the body and focusing attention on the animal’s characterful face. Rosetsu abandons realistic body proportions in favour of rounded lines to capture the feeling of a puppy eager to play. These techniques, which later became the foundation of manga, enabled artists to simplify drawings in a way that communicates a specific feeling to the viewer.1

展览表明，这一时期的艺术大师们在作品中融入萌系元素颇为常见——这与当时萌系77艺术才刚刚兴起的欧洲形成了鲜明对比。这种差异是如何造成的？正如我们已经看到的，宗教似乎是一个因素。另一个因素或许更为根本。与饱受战火摧残的欧洲不同，日本当时基本处于和平时期。

The exhibition demonstrated that it was common for masters of the art world in this period to include cute subjects in their work – in stark contrast to Europe, where cuteness in 77the fine arts was only just beginning to emerge. What accounts for this disparity? As we have already seen, religion seems to be one factor. Another may be even more elemental. Unlike war-riven Europe, Japan was largely at peace.

我觉得，饱受战乱的国家没有时间和精力去享受可爱无害的事物，这合情合理。事实上，日本在平安时代享受了近四个世纪的和平，正是在那段时期，《枕草子》和《百兽图》问世了。尽管之后日本又经历了一段动荡时期，但江户时代又带来了一个漫长的无战时代；随着和平的到来，人们对各种形式的玩乐的热情再次高涨。

It makes sense to me that countries convulsed by war wouldn’t have the time or energy to indulge in a taste for cute, harmless things. In fact Japan had enjoyed almost four centuries of peace during the Heian era that produced The Pillow Book and the Scroll of Frolicking Animals. Although the country subsequently entered a period of turbulence, the Edo era brought another long age without war; with the arrival of peace, the penchant for play in all its forms arose again.

江户时代以闭关锁国的外交政策（sakoku）而闻名，该政策限制了日本与外界的联系。人们通常认为，当时的日本文化没有受到外来文化的影响，但事实却更令人关注。尽管只有少量西方知识流入日本，但它对艺术，尤其是卡哇伊美学的发展产生了深远的影响。如果没有一位日本艺术界巨匠的影响，扇面上的小狗图案永远不会被画出来，他的作品至今仍广受喜爱。他的名字是丸山应京（1733-1795），他是一位将新旧艺术融合的天才。

The Edo era is well known for an isolationist foreign policy (sakoku) that restricted contact with the outside world. It’s often thought that Japanese culture was free from foreign influence during this time, but the reality is more interesting. Although only a trickle of Western knowledge entered Japan, it had a profound influence on the arts in general and on the development of the kawaii aesthetic in particular. The puppy on the fan would never have been painted without the influence of a giant in the Japanese art world whose works are still beloved. His name is Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795) and he was a genius at blending the old with the new.

十八世纪中叶，少年时代就读于京都的一家玩具店。店里最受欢迎的商品是一些图画，这些图画放在一种名为“荷兰镜”的凸透镜前，会呈现出三维效果。为了绘制这些特殊的图画，他学习了欧洲的线性透视法，并将其扭曲成“透视图”，从而创造出3D效果。78

In the middle of the eighteenth century the teenage Ōkyo began working in a Kyoto toyshop. The shop’s most popular products were pictures that looked three-dimensional when placed in front of a convex magnifying lens called a ‘Holland glass’.2 In order to paint these special pictures, Ōkyo had to learn European linear perspective and then distort it into the ‘perspective view’ that created the 3D effect. 78

图 4.2：丸山Ōkyo 创作的《小狗》。

Fig. 4.2: Puppies by Maruyama Ōkyo.

大京对数学和艺术的兴趣促使他在接受艺术培训的同时，研习了医学、解剖学和植物学。3他对流传到日本的欧洲艺术品的研究，使他将西方的透视79和阴影技巧与他对自然的兴趣相结合。4他成为了一种名为“写生”的新型日本写实绘画的先驱，这种绘画基于写生。大京是当时著名的艺术家，如今被认为是日本绘画史上的大师之一。

Ōkyo’s interest in mathematics and art led him to study medicine, anatomy and botany while he trained as an artist.3 His study of European artworks that had made their way to Japan led him to combine Western techniques of perspective 79and shading with his interest in nature.4 He became a pioneer of a new form of realistic Japanese painting called shasei, based on sketching from life. A famous artist in his day, Ōkyo is now considered one of the all-time masters of Japanese painting.

正如我们已经看到的，托马斯·庚斯博罗和约书亚·雷诺兹等欧洲艺术家在十八世纪通过描绘儿童的真实面貌，彻底革新了儿童肖像画。他们的同代日本画家大京将这种现实主义推向了新的方向，进一步增强了画中人物的可爱感。然而，他选择的不是儿童，而是小狗。

As we have already seen, European artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds revolutionised child portraiture in the eighteenth century by depicting children as they really looked. Ōkyo, their Japanese contemporary, took this realism in a new direction that enhanced the cuteness of his subjects even further. However, rather than children, he chose to paint puppies.

由于无法让扭来扭去的小狗摆出姿势，Ōkyo 便观察它们玩耍的姿态，并凭着记忆作画。除了知识和才华之外，他还运用了日本传统的“减法”技法来展现动物的本质。他大胆的光影运用简洁明了，如同粗糙的照片一般。这种图形渲染营造出一种近乎不可思议的自然感。

Since it is impossible to convince wriggling puppies to pose, Ōkyo observed them at play and painted from memory. Along with his knowledge and talent, he used the traditional Japanese technique of reduction to represent the essence of the animals. His bold lights and darks appear simple, like a coarse-grained photograph. This graphic rendering produces an almost uncanny sense of naturalness.

Ōkyo 的小狗们喜欢在狭长卷轴的底部嬉闹。在构图中留出大片空白是日本的传统技法，在 Ōkyo 的手中，这种技法更凸显了小狗们的娇小身躯。他运用写实手法，捕捉了 Lorenz 的“儿童图式”——圆圆的身体、短短的腿和宽阔的脸庞——但可爱之美在它们的互动中更加凸显。小狗们快乐地一起探索着它们的新世界，嬉戏玩闹的友谊之情溢于言表。

Ōkyo’s puppies tend to cavort at the bottom of long, narrow scrolls. The propensity for leaving large areas of empty space in a composition is a traditional Japanese technique that, in Ōkyo’s hands, emphasises the smallness of the puppies. He employs realism to capture the characteristics of Lorenz’s ‘child schema’ – round bodies, short legs and wide faces – but the cuteness really shines through in their interactions. The puppies joyfully explore their new world together, the essence of playful friendship pouring from them.

当时保守的画派批评大京的新技法过于注重外貌。他被指责为题材的奴隶，而文人则认为他的画作缺乏尊严。然而，他的作品在普通民众中却广受欢迎，他们喜欢作品中可爱的元素。5在大京的后期画作中，他开始更多地使用轮廓线。幼崽的毛发被简化80为一条单一的线条，这反而让它们看起来更加真实。6

Ōkyo’s new techniques were criticised by the conservative painting schools of his time for being too concerned with physical appearance. He was accused of being a slave to his subject matter, while the literati decreed that his paintings lacked dignity. However, his work was hugely popular among lay people, who loved its cuteness.5 In Ōkyo’s later paintings he began to use more outlining. The pups’ fur was reduced 80to a single bodyline, which paradoxically made them seem even more real.6

图 4.3：Ōkyo 的小狗的特写

Fig. 4.3: Close-up of Ōkyo’s puppies

虽然像庚斯博罗和雷诺兹这样的艺术家有时会在他们的儿童肖像画中加入小狗，但大京的小狗看起来更具现代感。他将自己的技法与《枕草子》和《百兽图》中体现的简化和减法等日本传统美学手法相结合，从而实现了我们如今所说的人物刻画。近距离观察，这些十八世纪的小狗仿佛是现代儿童读物或电影中的人物；他的学生长泽濑越在绘制扇子上的小狗时就运用了这些技法。

While artists like Gainsborough and Reynolds sometimes included puppies in their child portraits, Ōkyo’s pups look more modern. He combined his technique with the traditional Japanese aesthetic practices of simplification and reduction that appeared in The Pillow Book and the Scroll of Frolicking Animals to achieve what we now call characterisation. Seen close up, these eighteenth-century puppies might be characters from a modern-day children’s book or film; his student Nagasawa Rosetsu employed these techniques when he painted the puppy on the fan.

大京和他的学生们生活在日本艺术蓬勃发展的时代。江户（现称东京）拥有世界上最多的前现代城市人口，81人口超过一百万。当时大多数人生活拮据，但他们愿意攒钱去看一天的相扑比赛、晚上的歌舞伎表演，或者参加热闹的寺庙朝圣之旅。7虽然绘画价格昂贵，但廉价的木版画（浮世绘）却变得可以承受。浮世绘的主题从微妙讽刺到滑稽戏剧，应有尽有，但可爱的主题非常受欢迎——其中有一位艺术家尤其以猫科动物题材而闻名。

Ōkyo and his students lived in a time when the arts were booming in Japan. The city of Edo – now called Tokyo – boasted the largest pre-modern urban population in the world, 81with over one million inhabitants. Most people in this period had little money, but they were willing to save up for a day watching sumo wrestling, an evening’s kabuki performance or a raucous group pilgrimage to a temple.7 While paintings were expensive, cheap woodblock prints (ukiyo-e) became affordable. Their subjects ranged from subtle and satirical to funny and dramatic, but cute themes were quite popular – and one artist in particular was famous for his feline subjects.

歌川国芳 (1798–1861) 是一位著名的木版画画家，他非常喜爱猫。他经常把一只猫塞进和服袖子里在工作室里走来走去，并经常以猫作为他艺术创作的主题。有时，它们只是懒洋洋地躺在那里，而穿着优雅和服的女子则与它们玩耍；在其他版画中，歌舞伎演员被描绘成猫脸。还有一些画作中，猫的身体伸展开来，拼出猫科动物最喜欢的食物的单词，比如鳗鱼 ( unagi ) 和章鱼 ( tako )，每只猫的脸都展现了它的性格。另一幅名为《春月，发情的猫》的版画描绘了江户繁华的吉原风俗区，一群猫充当顾客、艺伎和妓女。

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798–1861) was a renowned woodblock printmaker who loved cats. He would often walk around his studio with one tucked into the sleeve of his kimono, and he frequently made them the subject of his art. Sometimes they simply loll as women in elegant kimonos play with them; in other prints, kabuki actors are depicted with cat faces. In yet others, cat bodies stretch to spell out words for favourite feline treats, such as eel (unagi) and octopus (tako), with the face of each cat revealing its character. Another print, evocatively titled Spring Moon, Cats in Heat, depicts the bustling Yoshiwara pleasure quarter in Edo, with a cast of cats as customers, geisha and courtesans.

尽管西方文化对猫抱有某种矛盾的心态，这种心态源于基督教传统中猫与巫术和撒旦的联系，但到了19世纪末，拟人化的猫也出现在西方艺术作品中。然而，它们远不及歌川国芳的作品——这位版画大师与这些动物的深厚渊源，使他能够想象它们在各种可以想象的情境中；对于爱猫人士来说，他的版画有着一种令人无法抗拒的可爱。8

Although Western culture contains a certain ambivalence about cats that stems from their association with witchcraft and Satan in the Christian tradition, by the end of the nineteenth century anthropomorphised cats were also showing up in Western artworks. They were no match for Kuniyoshi’s, however – the master printmaker’s deep connection with the animals led him to imagine them in every conceivable situation; for fellow cat-lovers, his prints have an irresistible cuteness.8

虽然歌川国芳的创作灵感源自《百兽图》，但他的私人藏书也收藏了西方艺术作品，并且像丸山应京一样，他对西方艺术技巧进行了深入研究。他的一些版画作品融合了透视法和消失点，并以不同的角度和姿势描绘人物。9 82

While Kuniyoshi was inspired by the Scroll of Frolicking Animals, his personal library included Western artwork and, like Maruyama Ōkyo, he made a careful study of Western art techniques. Some of his prints incorporate perspective with a vanishing point and depict figures from different angles and poses.9 82

虽然“卡哇伊”根植于日本传统美学，但它却融合了欧洲技法，并融入了像大京和国芳这样热爱动物的艺术家的情感。即使是日本的艺术大师也乐于接受新的影响，这一事实在下一个历史时期对整个国家大有裨益，因为当时世界上许多地方都对日本的一切着迷。

Although kawaii has roots in traditional Japanese aesthetics, it developed using European techniques filtered through the sensibilities of animal-loving artists like Ōkyo and Kuniyoshi. The fact that even master artists in Japan were open to new influences would serve the entire country well in the next era of its history, when much of the world became obsessed with all things Japanese.

日本主义

Japonisme, the cult of Japan

日本文化长期以来一直对细微事物情有独钟，同时也珍视简约，欣赏转瞬即逝的事物。这一切的背后，是对趣味和玩味的深切热爱。许多文化都拥有同样的偏好，但在日本，这些文化以一种独特的方式融合在一起，使得可爱元素比其他地方更早地在艺术领域涌现。此外，日本的可爱元素在几个漫长的和平时期蓬勃发展，当时正是创造力旺盛的时期，新的艺术类型和新的技法被不断创造和探索。在江户时代，西方知识的缓慢渗透带来了新颖的艺术技巧。而随着十九世纪末期，日本的“卡哇伊”开始影响北美可爱元素的发展。

Japanese culture has long shown an affinity for small things, while also valuing simplicity and appreciating the transient. Underneath all this is a deep love of the amusing and playful. Many cultures share these preferences, but in Japan they came together in a way that enabled cuteness to emerge in the arts earlier than elsewhere. In addition, Japanese cuteness flourished during a few long periods of peace, times of fervent creativity in which new genres were created and new techniques explored. In the Edo era, the slow drip of Western knowledge led to novel artistic techniques. And as the nineteenth century ended, Japanese kawaii began to influence the development of cuteness in North America.

1853年，美国海军驶入东京附近的港口，要求日本政府做出贸易让步，迫使日本政府不得不开放边境。日本是一个自然资源匮乏的工业化前国家，依赖艺术家和工匠生产商品出口，而他们的努力也取得了显著的成功。欧洲人对日本艺术品和装饰品的狂热始于19世纪60年代，并持续了整个19世纪。

In 1853 the US Navy steamed into the harbour near Tokyo to demand trade concessions from the Japanese government, leaving them no choice but to open the country’s borders. A pre-industrialised nation with few natural resources, Japan was reliant on artists and artisans producing goods for export, and their efforts proved remarkably successful. The European craze for Japanese artworks and decorative objects began in the 1860s and lasted for the rest of the nineteenth century.

日本主义，即“日本崇拜”，始于莫奈、德加、梵高、惠斯勒、蒂索和克里姆特等波西米亚艺术家，他们最初对木版画产生了狂热，后来转向屏风、卷轴和和服。莫奈的家中摆满了日本83版画和绘画。1876年，他画了一幅身穿和服、手持扇子的妻子，他后来的《睡莲》系列画作也直接受到日本版画的启发。梵高于1888年创作了一幅身着和尚的自画像。1869年，詹姆斯·蒂索创作了三幅年轻女子欣赏他收藏的日本物品的画作，其中包括和服和娃娃。10

Japonisme, the ‘cult of Japan’, began with bohemian artists like Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, Whistler, Tissot and Klimt, who started a craze for woodblock prints before moving on to screens, scrolls and kimonos. Monet’s house is full of Japanese 83prints and paintings. In 1876 he painted his wife wearing a kimono and holding a fan, and his later Water Lilies paintings were directly inspired by Japanese prints. Van Gogh painted a self-portrait dressed as a Buddhist priest in 1888. In 1869 James Tissot did three paintings of young women admiring Japanese objects from his own collection, including kimonos and dolls.10

随着时间的推移，几乎所有欧美艺术家都为日本的审美观所折服。像歌山国芳这样的艺术家的木版画缺乏深度，也缺乏对表面细节的关注，而像大京这样的艺术家则崇尚自然主义，这使得他们能够将自然描绘得充满光影、动感、情感和色彩。这对西方艺术家来说是一个启示，他们发现木版画和绘画中展现的活力和趣味，是摆脱当时传统僵硬的肖像画和风景画的解放力量。11

In time, practically all European and American artists were wowed by the Japanese sense of aesthetics. The lack of depth and attention to surface detail found in the woodblock prints of artists like Kuniyoshi, along with the naturalism of artists like Ōkyo, helped to portray nature as full of light, motion, feeling and colour. This was a revelation to Western artists, who found the energy and playfulness displayed in woodblock prints and paintings a force of liberation from the conventional, stiff portraits and landscapes of the day.11

日本开始在十九世纪末风靡一时的国际博览会（后来被称为世界博览会）上推销出口产品。这些博览会不仅展示了新技术和创新，还展现了世界各国的文化和艺术。1878年世界博览会结束后，一位评论家写道，对日本艺术和设计的热情如同熊熊燃烧的火药般席卷了巴黎，因为它“想象力独创、充满乐趣、充满惊喜，并且气质优美”。12拉夫卡迪奥·赫恩（Lafcadio Hearn）撰写了十几本关于日本的畅销书，他将整个日本描述为精致的。他写道，在日本，“奇珍异宝和精美物品琳琅满目，令人眼花缭乱。” 13 84

Japan began promoting products for export at the international exhibitions, later called world’s fairs, that were all the rage in the late nineteenth century. These displayed new technologies and innovations, along with the culture and art of countries around the world. After the 1878 Universal Exhibition one reviewer wrote that enthusiasm for Japanese art and design had swept through Paris like flaming gunpowder, due to its ‘imagination that is ingenious, playful, rich in surprises and of a beautiful temper’.12 Lafcadio Hearn, who wrote a dozen popular books on Japan, described the whole country as exquisite. In Japan, he wrote, ‘curiosities and dainty objects bewilder you by their very multitude.’13 84

图 4.4：松木文雄的《日本艺术家材料目录》的封面。

Fig. 4.4: The cover of Bunkio Matsuki’s Catalogue of Japanese Artists’ Materials.

虽然对日本的崇拜始于艺术家和知识分子，但展览、歌剧和书籍却将日本所有事物的迷恋传播到了欧美日益壮大的中产阶级。折扇、瓷器和人偶非常适合当时新兴的消费文化，因为在这种文化中，女性在室内装饰方面拥有更多的自主权。14展览会上展出的商品也出售，随着日本生产出越来越多不同价位的商品，许多城市很快开设了专门经营日本艺术品的商店。虽然在欣喜若狂85的西方人心目中，日本逐渐被视为一个充满乐趣、充满异国情调的仙境，但日本人却毫不犹豫地利用这一形象来追求经济繁荣。15

Although the cult of Japan began with artists and intellectuals, exhibitions, operas and books helped to spread the fascination with all things Japanese to the growing middle classes in Europe and America. Folding fans, porcelain and dolls were perfect for the new consumer culture in which women were making more decisions about interior decoration.14 Goods displayed at the exhibitions were also on sale, and shops dedicated to Japanese art soon opened in many cities as the country produced more and more objects at varying price points. While Japan came to be viewed as a playful, exotic wonderland in the 85minds of delighted Westerners, the Japanese didn’t hesitate to use this image in their pursuit of economic prosperity.15

图 4.5：松木文雄波士顿店的白兔标志。

Fig. 4.5: The white rabbit logo of Bunkio Matsuki’s Boston shop.

1895 年，一位名叫松木文雄的日本商人在波士顿开了一家名为“白兔”的商店，店内销售超过 20,000 件进口艺术品和家居用品。16 1904年的一本产品目录中有一幅插图，画的是一位日本男子在画中活灵活现地从纸上跳下来的兔子，其风格让人想起十二世纪的《嬉戏动物卷轴》。

In 1895 a Japanese merchant named Bunkio Matsuki opened a shop in Boston called the White Rabbit, which stocked more than 20,000 imported artworks and household items.16 A catalogue from 1904 features an illustration of a Japanese man drawing rabbits that come to life and hop off the page, in a style that recalls the twelfth-century Scroll of Frolicking Animals.

我喜欢顶部那个笑脸兔子标志的标志性简洁风格，这个标志可以追溯到 1899 年，出现在所有与 Matsuki 商店相关的印刷材料上。17

I love the iconic simplicity of the smiling rabbit logo at the top, which dates from 1899 and appeared on all printed materials related to Matsuki’s shop.17

1904 年的产品目录包括艺术家所需的材料，例如画笔、墨水、模板和设计书籍，这些材料使他的顾客（其中大多数是中产阶级女性）能够制作自己的日式设计。18就这样，像兔子标志这样的可爱图像作为艺术灵感进入了美国家庭。

The 1904 catalogue includes artists’ materials such as brushes, ink, stencils and design books that enabled his customers, most of whom were middle-class women, to make their own Japanese-style designs.18 In this way, cute images like the rabbit logo made their way into American homes as an artistic inspiration.

然而，当对日本一切事物的狂热渗透到西方消费文化中时，日本人开始被定型，被视为仅仅是其艺术感受力的延伸。皮埃尔·洛蒂 1887 年的回忆录《菊女夫人》 ——普契尼歌剧《蝴蝶夫人》的灵感来源——用五彩缤纷的小词句来指代日本人86。故事讲述了作者与长崎一位 18 岁女孩的“临时婚姻”，他付钱给女孩的家人，以便可以在他逗留期间与她同住。当洛蒂在雇佣的同伴的陪同下游览长崎时，他反复将女孩和她的朋友描述为“日本小娃娃”和“跳舞的小狗”。这个国家到处都是微笑的“小男人和小女人”，他们看起来“像小猴子，像小瓷器饰品”。事实上，“ petit”这个词在这部短篇作品中出现了 357 次。这种居高临下的种族主义在当时并不罕见，《菊夫人》也因此获得了巨大的成功。出版仅仅五年后，洛蒂的回忆录就被翻译成多种语言，出版了25个版本。19

However, when the fad for all things Japanese infiltrated Western consumer culture, Japanese people came to be stereotyped as mere extensions of their artistic sensibility. Pierre Loti’s 1887 memoir Madame Chrysanthème, the inspiration for Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, refers to Japanese people with a 86confetti shower of diminutives. The story relates the author’s ‘temporary marriage’ to an eighteen-year-old girl in Nagasaki, which he arranged by paying her family so that he could live with her for the duration of his stay. As he samples the sights of Nagasaki accompanied by his paid companion, Loti repeatedly describes the girl and her friends as ‘little Nipponese dolls’ and ‘little dancing dogs’. The country is full of smiling ‘little men and little women’ who look ‘like little monkeys, like little china ornaments’. In fact the word petit appears 357 times in this short work. Such condescending racism was not unusual at the time, and Madame Chrysanthème became a runaway success. Just five years after its publication, twenty-five editions of Loti’s memoir had appeared in several languages.19

普契尼的《蝴蝶夫人》以及吉尔伯特和沙利文的《天皇》的流行引发了 20 世纪初日本题材戏剧制作的繁荣。日本角色几乎总是由化着“亚洲”妆的白人演员扮演。女演员布兰奇·贝茨依靠她的日本女仆苏琪学习如何像日本女人一样走路、坐下和扇风——这些行为被演员称为“艺伎的卖弄风情”。20日本女性的刻板印象多种多样，包括坚忍和顺从，但也有纯朴、甜美和“纯真的性欲”等品质。21正如我们稍后会看到的，纯真的调情尤其具有广泛的吸引力，成为从洋娃娃到像秀兰·邓波儿这样的儿童演员等一切事物中少女可爱的缩影。

The popularity of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, along with Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, sparked a boom in Japan-themed theatrical productions in the early twentieth century. The Japanese characters were almost always played by white actors in ‘Asian’ make-up. The actress Blanche Bates relied on her Japanese maid, Suki, for instruction on how to walk, sit and fan herself like a Japanese woman – behaviours that the actor referred to as ‘Geisha coquetry’.20 Stereotypes of Japanese women were varied and included stoicism and subservience, but also qualities such as simplicity, sweetness and ‘innocent sexuality’.21 As we’ll see later, the idea of innocent flirtation in particular took on a wide appeal and became the epitome of girlish cuteness for everything from dolls to child actors like Shirley Temple.

当时的记者注意到，美国年轻女性喜欢看到这样的角色在舞台上表演，尽管她们认为自己与男性不同，聪明、自信、足智多谋。22白人女性发现，通过体现日本女性的普遍幻想，探索不同形式的女性气质是一种解放，穿上日本和服、化妆让自己看起来像“日本人”成为一种全国性的87时尚。23以日本为主题的大学和业余戏剧表演很受欢迎，参加化妆舞会和拍照时也穿着这种风格的服装。24

Journalists of the period noted that young American women enjoyed seeing such roles performed onstage even though they saw themselves differently, as intelligent, self-assertive and resourceful.22 White women found it liberating to explore different forms of femininity by embodying the popular fantasy of the Japanese woman, and dressing up in Japanese kimonos and putting on make-up to look ‘Japanese’ became a nationwide 87fad.23 University and amateur theatrical performances with a Japanese theme were popular, as was dressing up in the style for costume parties and photo sessions.24

布兰奇·贝茨说，她扮演的日本角色就像“一个不成熟的童女的娇小身影”。25这种认为日本人娇小可爱的刻板印象广为流传。日裔美国作家凯瑟琳·玉川在1893年写道，她对被描述为“可爱的小日本人”或“日本娃娃”感到恼火。26她回忆说，那些认为她可爱的人会把她介绍为“小日本女士”，尽管她比实际身高矮得多。“我觉得出于礼貌，我应该缩小一点，”她写道。27

Blanche Bates said that she played her Japanese roles as ‘the tiny figure of an immature child-woman’.25 This stereotype of Japanese people as small and adorable was widespread. The Japanese American writer Kathleen Tamagawa wrote in 1893 about her irritation at being characterised as a ‘cute little Japanese’ or a ‘Japanese doll’.26 She recalled that people who thought of her as cute would introduce her as the ‘little Japanese lady’ despite being considerably shorter than she was. ‘I felt that out of sheer politeness I should shrink,’ she wrote.27

19世纪末20世纪初，“可爱”与人们对亚洲人的态度之间的联系远非正面。另一位“可爱研究”学者埃里卡·金坂（Erica Kanesaka）本人也是日裔美国人，她从个人经历中深知“可爱”如何成为一种刻板印象。她指出，20世纪初，从洋娃娃到和服等日本进口商品的流行，使得美国人能够按照自己的方式将充满异域风情的东方“他者”带入家庭生活。然而，当时真正的日本儿童和女性被称为“可爱”，是在一种席卷美国的新种族主义意识形态的背景下发生的：“黄祸” 。28

The connections between cuteness and attitudes towards Asian people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are far from positive. Erica Kanesaka, another Cute Studies scholar, is Japanese American herself and knows, from personal experience, how cuteness can become a stereotype. She points out that in the early twentieth century the popularity of Japanese imports, from dolls to kimonos, enabled Americans to bring the exotic Oriental other into the domestic sphere on their own terms. However, when real Japanese children and women were called cute at that time, it was in the context of a new racist ideology that was sweeping the US: the ‘yellow peril’.28

起初，只有成年男性从亚洲来到美国工作。随着女性开始涌入，媒体开始煽动人们担忧“未被同化的”亚洲移民会推翻白人至上主义的统治。埃里卡发现了一张1920年《旧金山观察家报》上的照片，这张照片完美地概括了这种偏执。照片中，两名国会议员抱着一个亚裔小孩，配文写道：“可爱，但有点黄”。下方，这个孩子被认为是“加州对东方洪灾恐惧的主要原因之一” 。29

At first, only adult men came from Asia to work in the US. When women began to arrive, the press began to fan fears that ‘unassimilated’ Asian immigrants would overcome the rule of white supremacy. Erica discovered a 1920 photograph from the San Francisco Examiner that neatly encapsulates this paranoia. It shows two Congressmen with a small Asian child, and the caption reads: ‘Cute, but Yellow’. Below, the child is identified as ‘one of the chief causes for California’s fear of the Oriental flood’.29

埃里卡的研究让我意识到，“黄祸论”的信奉者们意识到，日本88儿童和女性的可爱能够激发同情心。然而，由于美国白人拒绝亚洲移民融入美国社会，他们对这种可爱持怀疑态度。从这种种族主义的角度来看，日本被广泛视为儿童天堂，这颇具讽刺意味。1863年，首任英国驻日公使卢瑟福·阿尔科克爵士在回忆录中首次这样称呼日本。后来，前往日本的游客也纷纷效仿，这种看法很快便被广泛接受。游客们发现，日本人不会在公共场合体罚行为不端的孩子，而这在他们家中却很常见。他们看到日本女孩背着弟弟妹妹四处走动，这种可爱的形象也成为了纪念明信片的热门主题。30

Erica’s research helped me to see that believers of the ‘yellow peril’ ideology recognised that the cuteness of Japanese 88children and women creates empathy. However, because white Americans refused to allow Asian immigrants to become part of American society, they treated this cuteness with suspicion. Seen in the light of this racism, it is ironic that Japan was widely regarded as a paradise for children. It was first called this in 1863 in a memoir by Sir Rutherford Alcock, the first British minister in Japan. Later travellers to the country followed suit, and the sentiment soon became an accepted fact. Tourists saw that the Japanese didn’t physically punish misbehaving children in public, a common sight at home. They saw Japanese girls taking care of their younger siblings by carrying them around on their backs, an adorable image that became a popular subject in souvenir postcards.30

日本曾被认为是儿童的天堂，后来演变成所有日本人——包括成年人——都充满童心的观念。人们认为日本充满了天真快乐的人，他们过着贴近自然、充满美感的生活。西方世界被这种“东方伊甸园”的形象所迷惑；31这种形象的形成并非偶然，当时西方国家正在重新审视童年的重要性，并希望回归更纯真的时代。

The idea that Japan was a paradise for children morphed into the idea that all Japanese people – including adults – were childlike. Japan was considered to be full of innocent, happy people who lived aesthetically pleasing lives close to nature. The Western world was besotted by this image of an ‘Eastern Eden’;31 it’s no accident that this image formed at a time when Western countries were reconsidering the importance of childhood and wished to return to a more innocent time.

长期以来，日本一直被刻板地认为是一个充满可爱事物和可爱人物的国家，但事实上，20世纪“卡哇伊”的兴起与美国“可爱”审美的兴起有着类似的因素。例如，工业化经济体需要更多受过教育的工人，而普及教育的引入使得美国和日本都涌现出一种新的青年文化。在日本，女子教育的兴起极大地影响了“卡哇伊”的传播。

Japan has long been stereotyped as a land full of cute things and cute people, but the reality is that the twentieth-century rise of kawaii was due to factors similar to those that caused the ascent of the American cute aesthetic. For example, industrialising economies require more educated workers, and the introduction of universal education allowed a new youth culture to emerge in both the US and Japan. In Japan, the advent of girls’ education greatly influenced the spread of kawaii.

浪漫女学生的诞生

The birth of the romantic schoolgirl

1899年，日本政府推行女子普及中学教育，识字率随之飙升。32 1895年，89只有1.5%的女孩上中学；到1940年，这一比例已上升至22% 。33

In 1899 Japan’s government implemented universal secondary education for girls, causing literacy rates to skyrocket.32 In 1895 89only 1.5 per cent of girls attended secondary school; by 1940 this had risen to 22 per cent.33

当时，日本正快速工业化。然而，让女孩接受教育所带来的文化影响远超政府的预期。战前的日本，大多数女孩的生活都很艰难。离开学校后，她们通常会结婚并搬进夫家，在那里她们常常被当作佣人，并被评判她们的生育能力。

Japan was rapidly industrialising during this period. However, the cultural impact of making education accessible to girls was more than the government had bargained for. For most girls in pre-war Japan life was hard. Having left school, they would generally marry and move in with their husband’s family, where they were often treated as servants and judged by their ability to bear children.

义务教育制度为女孩们在童年和婚姻之间提供了一些喘息的空间，尤其是如果她们住在学校附近的宿舍。34在童年和成年之间的这段时期，一种独特的少女文化得以发展，而日本新的教育制度对男孩和女孩分别进行教育，则进一步促进了这种文化的发展。35

The compulsory education system gave girls some breathing space between childhood and marriage, especially if they went to live in a dormitory near their school.34 A unique culture of girlhood developed due to this period between childhood and adulthood, further helped by the fact that Japan’s new education system taught boys and girls separately.35

那些刚刚识字、拥有闲暇时间憧憬美好未来的女学生所形成的文化，正是现代“可爱”文化的基石。新型少女小说和插画杂志在全国范围内的流行，也为这种新文化的诞生贡献了力量。

The culture that coalesced around newly literate schoolgirls who had the leisure time to dream of a better future was the ground upon which modern kawaii was built. New genres of girls’ novels and illustrated magazines circulated nationwide and helped to create this new culture.

这些故事或杂志图片很少描绘乡村小学校的生活。相反，它们聚焦于就读于只有上层和中产阶级家庭才能负担得起的私立学院的女生。36一个表示“女孩”的新词是“shōjo”，暗示着上层阶级的优雅举止。37其他社会阶层的女孩们梦想着这些专属女子学院提供的精致生活，在那里，学生们被高墙包围，与外界生活隔绝，父母的资助让她们可以过上悠闲的生活。38有一位作家特别通过在她小时候喜爱的杂志上发表故事，描绘了这种生活。

Few of these stories or magazine images depicted life at small rural schoolhouses. Instead they focused on schoolgirls who attended the private academies that were only affordable to upper- and middle-class families.36 A new word for girl, shōjo, implied the refined manners of the upper classes.37 Girls from other social classes dreamed of the sophisticated life offered by these exclusive girls’ academies, where students were surrounded by walls that separated them from life outside and where parental funding allowed a life of leisure.38 And one author in particular offered visions of this life by publishing stories in the magazines that she had loved as a girl.

作家吉屋信子出生于1896年，出身于一个秉持传统的武士家庭。她在乡下长大，无法通过90电影或戏剧等形式接触更广阔的世界。“或许是因为我没有机会去追求这些乐趣，”她写道，“一本廉价的少女杂志的月刊激发了这个女孩的热情，并给了她无尽的快乐。”

The writer Nobuko Yoshiya was born in 1896 into a former samurai family that clung tightly to tradition. Growing up in the countryside, she didn’t have access to the wider world in the 90form of films or theatre. ‘Perhaps it was because I did not have the opportunity to seek such pleasures,’ she writes, ‘that one monthly issue of a cheap girls’ magazine inspired the passion of this girl and gave her such immense pleasure.’

芳屋非常珍惜女孩杂志上的插图，这些插图“有着像《娃娃的盛宴》这样迷人的标题，并配有适合每个月的花卉图像” 。39

Yoshiya treasured the illustrations in girls’ magazines that bore ‘charming titles like A Doll’s Banquet and were graced with flower images appropriate for each month’.39

高中毕业后，吉屋不顾家人反对，搬到了东京，开始为激发她热情的杂志撰写故事。她是日本最早为少女创作小说的作家之一，并被誉为少女小说这一类型的开创者。40 “没有一个在世的女性不知道吉屋信子是谁，”1935年的一篇关于这位作家的个人简介写道。41

When Yoshiya graduated from high school she moved to Tokyo, against the wishes of her family, and began to write stories for the magazines that had inspired her passion. She was among the first Japanese writers of fiction for girls and is credited with creating the genre of girls’ fiction.40 ‘There is not a single woman alive who doesn’t know who Yoshiya Nobuko is,’ declared a 1935 profile of the writer.41

芳也的《花语》系列由五十二个故事组成，围绕着两个女学生之间充满激情的友谊展开。这种关系被称为“S关系”（或称“S-kankei”），其中“S”代表英文单词“姐妹”，并成为了一种流行的类型。42芳也通过从故事中剔除男性角色，更加聚焦于一个由女性自主创造、拥有独特审美价值观的世界，一个没有家务或母性的浪漫世界。

Yoshiya’s series Flower Tales comprises fifty-two stories that revolve around passionate friendships between two schoolgirls. Known as ‘S relationships’ (or S-kankei), with the ‘S’ standing for the English word ‘sister’, this became a popular genre.42 By removing men from her stories, Yoshiya intensified the focus on a self-created girls’ world with its own aesthetic values, a world of romance without housework or motherhood.

吉屋抒情的写作风格向年轻读者展现了一个理想的少女世界。她的散文梦幻而充满渴望，以感性的意象来描绘色彩、香气和声音。她的风格在日语中被称为“hirahira”，这是一个拟声词，用来表达飘动的动作，类似于蝴蝶的飞舞或樱花的飘落。43与同样知名的插画家合作，她笔下关于同性寄宿学校爱情故事的华丽故事栩栩如生；她提供了背景和情节，并赋予了视觉维度，进一步发展了“卡哇伊”文化。

Yoshiya’s lyrical writing style reflected an ideal girls’ world back to her young readers. Her prose was dreamy and wistful, with sensual imagery that expressed colours, fragrances and sounds. Her style has been called hirahira in Japanese, an onomatopoeic word that expresses a fluttering movement, rather like the flight of butterflies or falling cherry blossoms.43 Working with equally well-known illustrators brought her flowery tales of same-sex boarding-school romances to life; she provided the setting and plot, and they brought a visual dimension that further developed kawaii culture.

20世纪初，类似启发了“芳屋”的少女杂志蓬勃发展。这些杂志设有专栏，刊登91女孩们自己的评论、个人经历、绘画和诗歌，为她们提供了表达创意的源泉，并让她们积极参与到全国性的社群网络中。44就这样，杂志帮助各个阶层的女孩们形成了新的、共同的身份认同。45

Magazines for girls like the one that had inspired Yoshiya proliferated in the early twentieth century. They included columns that published comments, personal experiences, drawings and 91poetry by the girls themselves, giving them a source of creative expression and active participation in a nationwide network.44 In this way, magazines helped to form a new, shared identity for girls of all classes.45

在读者持续不断的反馈启发下，艺术家、插画家、设计师和作家们纷纷迎合并打造了校园女生的可爱世界。46他们描绘出拥有梦幻表情的女孩，与芳屋等作家的故事相得益彰，并赋予她们前卫的时尚感。三位插画家尤其成为这场可爱革命的关键人物：竹久梦二、中原淳一和内藤留音。

Working under the inspiration of lively and continuous reader feedback, artists, illustrators, designers and writers both catered to and created the kawaii world of the schoolgirl.46 They drew girls with dreamy expressions suited to the stories of writers such as Yoshiya and dressed them in cutting-edge fashion. Three illustrators in particular became key figures in this kawaii revolution: Yumeji Takehisa, Junichi Nakahara and Rune Naito.

竹久梦二

Yumeji Takehisa

竹久梦二 (1884–1934) 插图中的优雅女孩凝视着远方，仿佛在做白日梦，这是 20 世纪 10 年代的标准少女形象。梦二才华横溢但未经训练，他创造了一种标志性的妆容，使用西方元素，如长睫毛和眼妆来强调其对象的情感特征。47他对女性面孔的描绘——尤其是大眼睛和高鼻子——与平安时代《枕草子》以来艺术中对女性的传统描绘截然相反。48梦二的妆容流行起来，20 世纪初，越来越多模仿他妆容的女性出现在街头。49

The elegant girls in the illustrations of Yumeji Takehisa (1884–1934) stare into the distance as if they are daydreaming, a standard shōjo image from the 1910s. Talented but untrained, Yumeji created a signature look that used Western elements such as long eyelashes and eye make-up to emphasise the emotive character of his subjects.47 His depictions of female faces – in particular the large eyes and prominent nose – were direct opposites of the traditional way women had been depicted in art since the Heian era of The Pillow Book.48 The Yumeji look caught on, and increasing numbers of women imitating his look appeared on the streets in the early 1900s.49

作家室郎佐政在描写那些开始模仿梦二风格、在公众场合露面的年轻女子时，被她们的样貌所震撼：“年轻女子的眼睛睁得大大的，她们的脸庞已经为新的舞台做好了准备。她们开始做梦。这些年轻女孩的眼睛像萤火虫一样闪耀，奏响了日本女孩历史上革命的新歌。” 50对室郎来说，这些女孩代表着92从旧的被动女性观念向现代女性的转变，她们准备打破日本僵化的性别等级制度。

Describing the young women who began to imitate the Yumeji style by appearing in public with the long lashes, eye make-up and trendy hairstyles that featured in his work, the writer Sasei Murō was struck by their look: ‘The eyes of young women were opened widely, their faces made ready for a new stage. They began to dream. With eyes shining like fireflies, these young girls ushered in a new song of revolution in the history of Japanese girls.’50 For Murō, these girls represented 92a transition from the old notion of passive femininity to the modern woman who was poised to shake up Japan’s rigid gender hierarchy.

梦二将他的设计称为“可爱”，这有助于“可爱”一词的普及。51 1914年，他在东京开了一家商店，出售他自己的产品线，包括信纸、扇子、围巾、装饰伞和娃娃。他异想天开的设计深受年轻女孩的欢迎；他们将熟悉的日本图案与当代欧洲元素（从扑克牌到音符）融为一体。这家商店的标志是一艘乘风破浪的船，头顶上有鸟儿飞翔，暗示着异国情调的进口商品。52 “可爱”一词与这个标志一起出现在商店的宣传单上。53

Yumeji referred to his designs as kawaii, which helped to popularise the word.51 In 1914 he opened a shop in Tokyo that sold his own line of products, including writing paper, fans, scarves, decorated umbrellas and dolls. His whimsical designs were popular with young girls; they mixed familiar Japanese motifs with contemporary European elements, from playing cards to musical notes. The shop’s logo was a ship riding the waves with birds flying overhead, suggesting exotic foreign imports.52 The word kawaii appeared alongside this logo on flyers promoting the shop.53

通过在刊登其插图的杂志上宣传自己店铺的商品，这位富有创业精神的艺术家为女孩们提供了购买梦二风格产品的机会。54梦二是首批创建自己品牌的艺术家之一，这使得女孩们能够通过购买日常用品，而不是仅仅在杂志上看他的插图，将他的可爱风格带入她们的生活。55

By advertising goods from his shop in the magazines that featured his illustrations, this enterprising artist offered girls the opportunity to buy into the Yumeji look.54 Yumeji was one of the first artists to create his own brand, which enabled girls to bring his kawaii style into their lives by purchasing products for daily use rather than merely looking at his illustrations in magazines.55

中原淳一

Junichi Nakahara

几十年后，中原淳一（1913-1983）也因其插画而声名鹊起，他的插画作品与吉屋信子等作家的小说一同刊登在少女杂志上。与梦二一样，他的作品融合了传统的日式和西式元素，但他进一步放大了女孩的眼睛，在眼中注入了闪亮的光线，增添了立体感，同时浓密的眼睑和眉毛也使她们看起来更加富有表现力。56

A few decades later Junichi Nakahara (1913–1983) also became very popular for his illustrations, which appeared alongside the stories of writers like Nobuko Yoshiya in girls’ magazines. Like Yumeji, his work combined traditional Japanese and Western elements, but he enlarged the eyes of his girls even further, placing shining lights in them to add a sense of depth, along with thick eyelids and eyebrows that made them appear even more expressive.56

和梦二一样，中原不仅反映了少女文化的潮流，他还创造了这些潮流。他的才华包括时装设计，他笔下的少女插画看起来就像商店模特展示最新款式一样。57中原十几岁时就制作过法式娃娃，他少女93插画中的眼睛看起来就像闪亮的玻璃娃娃的眼睛。58

Like Yumeji, Nakahara didn’t just reflect trends in shōjo culture – he created them. His talents included fashion design, and his illustrations of shōjo looked like shop mannequins modelling the latest styles.57 Nakahara had made French-style dolls 93as a teenager, and the eyes of his shōjo illustrations look like shining glass dolls’ eyes.58

图 4.6：中原淳一 (Junichi Nakahara) 1941 年为杂志《少女的朋友》创作的封面插图中，一位表情梦幻的年轻女孩身穿传统浴衣，梳着西式发型，戴着蝴蝶结。94

Fig. 4.6: In Junichi Nakahara’s 1941 cover illustration for the magazine The Shōjo’s Friend, a young girl with a dreamy expression wears a traditional yukata along with a Western hairstyle and bow. 94

虽然中原一度淡出时尚圈，但战后他风格的复兴使他成为后来卡哇伊美学发展中颇具影响力的人物。在东京高档的广尾街区，至今仍有一家专营他设计的商店。我去的时候，看到一位老年顾客花了数百美元购买了他的作品。一位女售货员告诉我，他们的顾客大多是八九十岁的女性，她们从少女时代起就是中原的粉丝。她说话的时候，几个二十多岁的女性走进商店，惊呼：“这是什么？好可爱啊！”她们从未听说过中原，但却被橱窗里可爱的设计所吸引。

Although Nakahara fell out of fashion for a time, a postwar revival of his style made him an influential figure in the later development of the kawaii aesthetic. There is still a shop dedicated to his designs in Tokyo’s upmarket Hiro-o neighbourhood. When I visited the shop, I looked on as an elderly customer made a purchase that totalled hundreds of dollars. A saleswoman told me that most of their customers are women in their eighties and nineties who have been Nakahara fans since girlhood. As she spoke, a few women in their twenties wandered into the shop, exclaiming, ‘What’s all this? It’s cute!’ They had never heard of Nakahara, but were attracted by the kawaii designs in the shop window.

中原的魅力跨越了几代人。他的插画影响了日本战后的主要时装设计师，同时也是少女漫画发展的关键，最终为“卡哇伊”文化树立了新的标准。59

Nakahara’s appeal spans the generations. His illustrations influenced Japan’s major post-war fashion designers – and they were also key in the development of girls’ manga, which eventually set the new standard for kawaii culture.59

内藤符文

Rune Naito

第二次世界大战将日本夷为平地，人们的兴趣不再是可爱的东西，而是寻找下一顿饭。但随着国家经济开始复苏，可爱也开始复苏。1948 年，中原淳一创办了《向日葵》（Himawari），这是战后第一批针对年轻女孩的杂志之一。这本杂志引起了内藤润字（1932-2007）的注意，他是一位才华横溢的 16 岁学生，梦想成为一名插画家。他开始主动给中原寄送图画，三年后被中原雇用。内藤的设计在接下来的几十年里对可爱文化产生了重大影响。他经常将这些设计称为“可爱”，这有助于扩大这个词的使用范围——就像竹久梦二的经历一样。60 95

The Second World War reduced Japan to rubble and left its population more interested in finding their next meal than in cute things. But as the country’s economic recovery began, kawaii also made a resurgence. In 1948 Junichi Nakahara founded Sunflower (Himawari), one of the first post-war magazines for young girls. It captured the attention of Rune Naito (1932–2007), a talented sixteen-year-old schoolboy who dreamed of becoming an illustrator. He began to send unsolicited drawings to Nakahara, who hired him three years later. Naito’s designs would subsequently become a major influence on kawaii culture over the next several decades. He often referred to them as kawaii, which helped to expand the use of the word – just as had happened with Yumeji Takehisa.60 95

图 4.7：Rune Naito 于 1971 年创作的角色 Rune Panda。

Fig. 4.7: Rune Naito’s 1971 character Rune Panda.

内藤的标志性风格包括大眼睛、小巧的透视脸、粗线条的轮廓和鲜艳的色彩。他通过减少细节来简化设计，这是一种可以追溯到《百兽图鉴》的悠久日本传统美学，旨在集中展现卡哇伊效果。他还画了一些头部比身体大得多的人物，这种风格如今在从宝可梦到漫画人物的各种作品中都有出现。与梦二和中原笔下的感性女孩不同，内藤的审美充满活力且魅力十足，而且他的大部分主题都带有西方风格。61

Naito’s signature style included large eyes, small foreshortened faces, thick outlines and vivid colours. He simplified his designs by reducing detail, a long-standing traditional Japanese aesthetic dating back to the Scroll of Frolicking Animals, to concentrate the kawaii effect. He also drew figures with heads much larger than their bodies, a style that now appears in everything from Pokémon to manga characters. Unlike the sentimental girls of Yumeji and Nakahara, Naito’s aesthetic was energetic and charming, and most of his motifs were Western.61

与前辈梦二一样，内藤是“精美商品”行业的先驱，他用可爱的图案装饰那些原本平淡无奇的物品，从文具到陶瓷。62在他的职业生涯中，他创作了超过一万种设计，其中最著名的是“符文熊猫”（Rune Panda），这是他在1971年参观伦敦动物园后构思的。内藤很幸运，次年东京一家动物园迎来了第一只熊猫。熊猫热席卷日本，“符文熊猫”在全国范围内大96受欢迎。几年后，一家名为三丽鸥（Sanrio）的公司推出了自己的“精美商品”角色，他们称之为“Hello Kitty”。

Like Yumeji before him, Naito was a pioneer of the ‘fancy goods’ business, which involved decorating typically drab items, from stationery to ceramics, with cute designs.62 He created more than 10,000 designs during his career, the most famous of which is ‘Rune Panda’, a design he came up with in 1971 following a visit to London Zoo. In a stroke of luck for Naito, a Tokyo zoo received its first panda the following year. A panda craze swept Japan, and Rune Panda became a nationwide 96hit. A few years later a company called Sanrio introduced their own ‘fancy goods’ character, which they called Hello Kitty.

符文熊猫的可爱部分源于其青春活力的特征。之前我们探讨了洛伦兹的儿童图式，该图式提出，一组共同的特征与幼年人类和动物的婴儿样貌相关。幼年特征持续到成年被称为幼态持续，这是一种在家养动物和人类身上都存在的生物学现象。我们可以说，幼态持续就是可爱的生物学术语。

Part of Rune Panda’s cuteness stems from its youthful features. Earlier we looked at Lorenz’s child schema, which proposed that a common set of traits was linked to a baby-like appearance in both young humans and animals. The persistence of juvenile traits into adulthood is called neoteny, and it’s a biological phenomenon that is found in both domesticated animals and in our own species. We could say that neoteny is the biological term for cuteness.

可爱的文化史与幼态持续有着有趣的联系；测量幼态持续的外貌，可以揭示一些最受欢迎的文化可爱偶像（包括泰迪熊和米老鼠）的惊人趋势。这也暗示了可爱在我们物种进化过程中的重要性。

The cultural history of cuteness is bound up with neoteny in interesting ways; measuring a neotenous appearance reveals surprising trends among some of the most popular cultural cute icons, including teddy bears and Mickey Mouse. It also has implications for the importance of cuteness in our own evolution as a species.

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逆向生长：幼态延续和神经嵴

Growth in Reverse: Neoteny and the Neural Crest

伊豆半岛距离东京仅几小时车程，拥有壮丽的岩石海岸线、温泉、鲜美的寿司鱼，以及一座泰迪熊博物馆。我简直不敢相信自己的好运。我刚写完关于泰迪熊的文章，急于核实我读到的一个奇怪事实——这些毛绒玩具似乎在几十年间变得更年轻了。它们最初是成年的，然后逐渐衰老，最终变成幼崽。有确凿的证据支持这一理论。动物学家罗伯特·A·欣德和L·A·巴登在英国剑桥郡民俗博物馆（现为剑桥博物馆）仔细观察了展览中的泰迪熊，发现后期的熊拥有大额头和短鼻子，这是洛伦兹儿童图式的特征。98而早期的熊则拥有低额头和长鼻子，这是成年熊的特征。1

The Izu Peninsula, a few hours from Tokyo, has a dramatic rocky coastline, hot springs, fresh fish for sushi – and a teddy-bear museum. I couldn’t believe my luck. I’d just finished writing about teddy bears and was eager to check a strange fact that I’d read about them – it seems that these stuffed animals have, over the decades, become younger in their appearance. Having started as adults, they steadily aged in reverse to become cubs. There is hard evidence to support this theory. When zoologists Robert A. Hinde and L. A. Barden closely examined the teddy bears in an exhibition at the Cambridge & County Folk Museum (now the Museum of Cambridge) in the UK, they found that later bears had the large foreheads and short snouts that are characteristics of Lorenz’s child schema. Earlier bears, 98on the other hand, had the low foreheads and long snouts that were characteristic of adults.1

泰迪女孩

Teddy Girl

在泰迪熊发明之前，人们曾把熊放在玩具小丑盒里吓唬孩子；早期的泰迪熊通常装有能发出咆哮声的音箱。2欣德和巴登测量的最早的样本是一只 1903 年的熊，它甚至还戴着口套。3读完这些，我开始觉得这些早期的熊反映了人们曾经对孩子的印象。正如我们之前所看到的，社会对孩子的观念已经从未受社会化的原始人（犯错应受惩罚）演变为可爱的小恶魔（恶作剧被纵容）。我原以为会在第一批泰迪熊身上找到一些那种野性，但后来我去了伊豆泰迪熊博物馆，与“泰迪女孩”面对面，这是博物馆在 1994 年拍卖会上购得的一只早期泰迪熊。

Before the invention of the teddy, bears had been used in jack-in-the-boxes to give children a scare; early teddies were often fitted with soundboxes that produced growls.2 The earliest specimen that Hinde and Barden measured, a bear from 1903, even sported a muzzle.3 Reading all this, I’d started to see these early bears as reflecting the image that people once had of children. As we saw earlier, the societal idea of the child had evolved from that of an unsocialised primitive whose misdeeds deserved punishment into an adorable imp whose mischief was indulged. I expected to find some of that wildness reflected in the first teddy bears, but then I went to the Izu Teddy Bear Museum and came face-to-face with Teddy Girl, an early bear that the museum purchased at auction in 1994.

泰迪熊女孩（Teddy Girl）由史泰福（Steiff）于1904年制造，是鲍勃·亨德森上校（Colonel Bob Henderson）的终身伴侣。他无论走到哪里都带着这只熊，包括1944年诺曼底登陆时的那只。泰迪熊的起源通常被认为是1902年一则关于泰迪·罗斯福（Teddy Roosevelt）在一次狩猎中放走了一只熊幼崽的新闻报道，这则报道启发了两位布鲁克林的企业家，并于次年开始制作和销售泰迪熊。然而，史泰福工厂声称，他们于1902年设计的这只带有可活动关节的马海毛毛绒熊才是世界上第一只毛绒熊。4

Made in 1904 by Steiff, Teddy Girl had been the lifelong companion of Colonel Bob Henderson, who took the bear with him wherever he went – including Normandy for the D-Day landings in 1944. The origin of the teddy bear is usually credited to a newspaper report about Teddy Roosevelt sparing a bear cub during a hunt in 1902, which inspired two Brooklyn entrepreneurs to begin making and selling teddies the following year. However, the Steiff factory claims that the mohair-plush bear with movable joints that it designed in 1902 is the world’s first stuffed bear.4

无论起源于美国还是德国，所有毛绒熊很快就被称为泰迪熊。它们的比例都差不多，包括长长的鼻子和低矮的额头。欣德和巴登的图表让我相信，最早的熊看起来比后来的熊更具动物性和野性。泰迪女孩的确有着狭窄的鼻子、低矮的99额头、长长的胳膊和大脚。但她肉桂色的皮毛在120年后依然蓬松，大耳朵衬托着一张个性十足的脸。博物馆里有一张她坐在年迈的亨德森上校旁边的照片，不难理解为什么他一生都把这只可爱的熊放在身边——她实在太可爱了。

Whether they were American or German in origin, all stuffed bears were soon known as teddies. And they all had similar proportions, including long snouts and low foreheads. Hinde and Barden’s graphs and charts had convinced me that the earliest bears looked more animalistic and wilder than later ones. Teddy Girl does indeed have a narrow snout, low 99forehead, long arms and large feet. But her cinnamon-coloured fur is still fluffy after 120 years, and her large ears frame a face full of personality. The museum has a photo of her sitting next to an elderly Colonel Henderson and it’s easy to see why he kept this adorable bear next to him his whole life – she’s undeniably cute.

泰迪熊通常不像洋娃娃那样被赋予性别。例如，泰迪女孩（Teddy Girl）曾被称为泰迪男孩（Teddy Boy），直到亨德森上校的女儿在一天晚上给泰迪熊穿上了一件带褶边的连衣裙，才让她改名为泰迪熊。柔软的毛绒熊在20世纪初是一项创新——之前的玩具动物都是用木头或毛毡制成的。由于泰迪熊不像洋娃娃那样带有女性的联想，它成为了送给男孩们的热门礼物。小男孩抱着泰迪熊的照片成为了一种欣赏男孩和熊的可爱的新方式，并迅速风靡一时。5

Teddy bears tend not to be gendered in the way that dolls often are. Teddy Girl, for example, had been called Teddy Boy until Colonel Henderson’s daughter put a frilly dress on the bear one night, causing her to be rechristened. Soft, plush bears were an innovation in the early twentieth century – toy animals had previously been made of wood or felt. Because bears had none of the feminine associations of dolls, teddies became a popular gift for boys. Photos of small boys clutching teddy bears were a new way of appreciating the cuteness of both boy and bear, and quickly became a fad.5

我可以用几页纸来描述博物馆其余部分的展品。“泰迪熊快车”是一辆真人大小的火车车厢，车厢里坐着熊作为乘客和乘务员；旁边是一个微型嘉年华，小熊们骑着旋转木马。“泰迪熊工厂”是一个巨大的机械立体模型，熊们在这里制造其他的熊，从缝纫到运输，无所不包。二楼的展览更是独具特色。在一条长长的走廊里，矗立着一座神社，里面全是泰迪熊：它们穿着传统长袍，打扫场地、守卫大门，而石熊则代替了常见的狐狸，充当地藏菩萨的守护神。神社里供奉着一只小泰迪熊，走廊的尽头是一系列小吃摊，熊们正在制作棉花糖之类的东西。整个设计非常精美，尽管略显疯狂。除了泰迪熊之外，所有参观者都发出了“卡哇伊！ ”的欢呼声。

I could describe for pages the exhibits that fill the rest of the museum. The Teddy Bear Express is a life-sized train car with bears as passengers and attendants; near it is a miniature carnival, complete with small bears riding the carousel. The Teddy Bear Factory is a large mechanical diorama in which bears manufacture other bears, from sewing to shipping. The exhibit on the second floor is even more unique. Installed in a long hallway is a Shinto shrine populated entirely by teddy bears: they sweep the grounds and attend the gates, dressed in traditional robes, while stone bears stand in for Jizo guardian statues instead of the usual foxes. The shrine contains a small teddy as the object of worship, and the hallway ends with a series of food stalls with bears making candy floss and the like. The whole thing was very well designed, if slightly mad. Cries of ‘Kawaii!’ came from everyone who wasn’t a bear.

当我在博物馆里探索，看到几十年后出现的泰迪熊时，动物学家们的说法显然是对的：泰迪熊的外表确实变得越来越幼稚。由于它们100从出生的那一刻起就很可爱（尽管它们有成年的特征），我不明白为什么它们会随着时间的推移变得越来越像幼崽——但事实证明，米老鼠就是答案。6

As I explored the museum and saw bears from later decades, it was clear that the zoologists were right: teddy bears did become increasingly juvenile in appearance. Since they were 100cute from the moment they appeared (adult features notwithstanding), I wasn’t sure why they became more cub-like over time – but it turned out that Mickey Mouse held the answer to that question.6

狡猾的米老鼠

Tricky Mickey Mouse

米老鼠是美国的标志，在世界各地都广为人知。他温柔纯真，无论阶级和国籍，都能吸引人们。7然而，当他在《威利号汽船》 （1928 年）中首次亮相银幕时，他却顽皮狡猾，像个骗子。他向汽船船长吐口水，将一桶水泼向嘲笑他的鹦鹉，并用钩子隔着内裤将米妮拖上船。当一只山羊吃了米妮的尤克里里琴时，两人摇动山羊的尾巴来弹奏，这启发米老鼠利用其他动物来达到同样的目的。他拉猫的尾巴，让她的哭声与节奏一致，然后把她甩来甩去；捏鸭子让它跟着节奏鸣叫；拉小猪的尾巴，让它们的牛叫声加入歌曲；用锤子像敲木琴一样敲打牛的牙齿和舌头。船长惩罚米奇削土豆，短片以米奇向鹦鹉扔土豆并将其打入河中后歇斯底里地大笑结束。

Mickey Mouse is an American icon, instantly recognised in every corner of the world. Gentle and innocent, he appeals to people regardless of their class and nationality.7 Yet when he made his screen debut in Steamboat Willie (1928), he was naughty and manipulative – a trickster. He blows a raspberry at the steamboat captain, throws a bucket of water over a parrot that laughs at him, and hauls Minnie on board by a hook through her underwear. When a goat eats Minnie’s ukulele, the two crank the goat’s tail to play it, inspiring Mickey to use the other animals for the same purpose. He pulls a cat’s tail to make her wails match the rhythm, before swinging her around and tossing her aside; squeezes a duck to make it honk in time; pulls piglets’ tails to add their oinks to the song; and pounds a cow’s teeth and tongue with a hammer like a xylophone. The boat’s captain sentences Mickey to peel potatoes as punishment, and the short film ends with the mouse laughing hysterically after he throws a potato at the parrot and knocks it into the river.

尽管米奇深受孩子们的喜爱，但家长们对早期米奇的鲁莽和暴力行为却并不感冒。到了20世纪30年代初，他们写信给迪士尼，抱怨米奇给他们的孩子树立了坏榜样。他们希望看到一个更友善的角色，而迪士尼的回应是，把标志性的米奇改造成了如今这个温和的“美国男孩” 。8 101

Although he was enthralling to children, parents were less enthusiastic about the impudence and violence shown by the early Mickey. By the early 1930s they were writing to Disney complaining that Mickey set a bad example for their children. They wanted to see a friendlier character, and the studio responded by turning its iconic mouse into the inoffensive ‘all-American boy’ he is today.8 101

图 5.1：1904 年的熊“泰迪女孩”的特征与后来的熊相比更加成熟。

Fig. 5.1: The features of ‘Teddy Girl’, a bear from 1904, are more adult compared to later bears.

米奇的行为并非他多年来唯一改变的地方。进化生物学家斯蒂芬·杰伊·古尔德在动画片《威利号汽船》首播五十年后观看这部动画片时，惊讶地发现这只老鼠的外貌也发生了显著变化。随着米奇行为的成熟，它的外貌也变得更加幼稚，古尔德将这种违反直觉的过程称为“逆生长” 。9

Mickey’s behaviour is not the only thing that changed about him over the years. When the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould watched Steamboat Willie fifty years after the cartoon’s debut, he was struck by the fact that the mouse’s appearance had also undergone significant change. As Mickey’s behaviour matured, so his appearance grew more juvenile, a counter-intuitive process that Gould dubs ‘growth in reverse’.9

在一篇题为《从生物学角度致敬米老鼠》的文章中，古尔德描述了他如何对米老鼠日渐成熟的过程进行定量测量。他发现，在过去的五十年里，米老鼠的头和眼睛变大了，而腿和脚却变得又短又粗壮。它的头骨凸起，而鼻子却萎缩了。米老鼠的变化复制了幼态延续的生物学过程，即幼年特征会保留到成年。换句话说，米老鼠逐渐变得像康拉德·洛伦兹的儿童图式，其中列出了这些相同的特征。去除米老鼠角色中的狡猾之处是一系列迭代的第一步，迪士尼的动画师们102逐步重新设计了这只著名的老鼠，直到它变得可爱又无害。10

In an article titled ‘A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse’ Gould describes how he made quantitative measurements of Mickey’s increasing juvenility. He found that over the course of five decades the mouse’s head and eyes had grown larger while his legs and feet became short and stocky. His cranium bulged while his snout shrank. Mickey’s changes replicate the biological process of neoteny, in which juvenile features are retained into adulthood. In other words, Mickey grew to resemble Konrad Lorenz’s child schema, which lists these same characteristics. Removing the trickiness from Mickey’s character was the first step in a set of iterations that saw Disney’s animators 102progressively redesign their famous mouse until he became sweet and inoffensive.10

古尔德关于米老鼠幼年化的文章启发了欣德和巴登测量泰迪熊，以验证他关于“无关物种的平行进化”的理论——他们曾这样讽刺。那么，是什么引发了米老鼠和泰迪熊都呈现出幼态、幼稚的特征呢？

Gould’s article on the juvenilisation of Mickey Mouse inspired Hinde and Barden to measure teddy bears to test his theory on ‘parallel evolution in an unrelated species’, as they wryly put it. So what had triggered this march towards neotenous, juvenile features in both Mickey Mouse and teddy bears?

幼态持续的外貌特征包括大而圆的头和眼睛，以及短而丰满的身体。它标志着动物社会化时期特有的童真特质，例如好奇心、开放性和亲和力——正如我们将看到的，这些特质在20世纪早期的美国文化中与儿童紧密相关。同一时期，报纸开始刊登以大头大眼、身材矮小的人物为主角的漫画。随着人们对可爱的追求日益高涨，这套幼稚的特征和行为逐渐成为艺术家和设计师们创作的公式的一部分。

A neotenous appearance includes a large, round head and eyes, together with a short, plump body. It signals childlike qualities that are characteristic of an animal’s socialisation period, such as curiosity, openness and approachability – traits that, as we shall see, became strongly associated with children in early-twentieth-century American culture. In the same period, newspapers began running comics that featured characters with large heads and eyes and short bodies. This set of juvenile features and behaviours became part of the formula that artists and designers gradually developed as the fad for cuteness gained momentum.

米老鼠、泰迪熊和漫画的演变，揭示了文化的转变，从顽皮的可爱转向甜美、青春的可爱。没有证据表明这种可爱的转变是有计划的。相反，泰迪熊设计师、迪士尼动画师和报纸编辑似乎都在无意识地追随儿童模式，因为公众更喜欢它。

The evolution of Mickey Mouse, teddy bears and comic strips reveals a cultural shift away from mischievous cuteness and towards sweet, youthful cuteness. There is no evidence that this transition in cuteness was planned. Rather, teddy-bear designers, Disney animators and newspaper editors all seem to have unconsciously followed the child schema because the public preferred it.

古尔德认为，我们能够抽象出儿童可爱的特质，并将其转移到动物和卡通人物身上，这是一种“生物错觉”：一种对触发因素的不恰当反应，而这些触发因素本应只针对我们自身物种的幼儿。11康拉德·洛伦兹也持有这种观点。他的儿童图式旨在表明“可爱”过于泛滥，以至于我们将任何具有幼儿特征的事物都视为可爱。

Gould says that our ability to abstract the qualities that make children cute in order to transfer them to animals and cartoon characters is a ‘biological illusion’: an inappropriate response to triggers that should fire only towards young members of our own species.11 Konrad Lorenz believed this as well. His child schema was intended to show that cuteness is too profligate, allowing us to regard anything with the features of young children as cute.

我认为可爱远不止于此。我相信，我们103能够将孩子、动物和人物沉浸在可爱温暖的光芒中，这绝非缺陷，而是人类操作系统的一个特性。然而，尽管古尔德对可爱的定义可能过于狭隘，但他对幼态持续的关注将有助于我论证可爱在人类进化中的重要性。

I think there’s more to cuteness than this. I believe that our 103ability to wrap children, animals and characters in the warm glow of cute feelings, far from being a flaw, is a feature of the human operating system. However, although Gould’s conception of cuteness may be too narrow, his focus on neoteny will help me make the case that cuteness was important in human evolution.

尽管古尔德的文章名为《向米老鼠致敬的生物学》，但他并不认为像米老鼠这样的可爱文化产品与进化生物学有任何联系。相反，他的论点是，老鼠的幼年期与人类物种的进化演变相吻合。换句话说，随着时间的推移，我们也变得越来越可爱。

Although Gould’s essay is called ‘A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse’, he doesn’t see any connection between cute cultural products like Mickey and evolutionary biology. Rather, his thesis is that the increasingly juvenile mouse matches a similar evolutionary transformation of the human species. In other words, we also grew cuter over time.

成年人类与幼年猿类的相似度远高于与成年猿类的相似度。我们当然会随着成熟而改变，但这些变化不如猿类或家养物种的野生祖先所经历的变化那么剧烈。除了人类成年后幼年特征的幼态持续性之外，古尔德还对人类由于漫长的成熟期而持续到成年的行为方式着迷。

Adult humans resemble baby apes more than they do adult apes. We change as we mature, of course, but these changes are less extensive than those that apes or the wild ancestors of domesticated species undergo. Along with this neotenous retention of juvenile traits in human adults, Gould is fascinated by the human behaviours that persist into adulthood, due to our long maturation period.

行为幼态持续

Behavioural neoteny

人类是所有哺乳动物中幼态持续性最强的。此外，我们是一种学习型动物；儿童的发育时间比其他物种长得多，因为我们在进化过程中被设定为学习型，而非本能行事。发育延迟造就了我们更大、更复杂的大脑。这也意味着，为了生存，人类需要成人更长时间的照顾和指导。12事实上，我们为孩子提供的更长时间的照顾有很多好处。更长的学习期使我们能够获得新技能并探索周围的世界。它有助于塑造我们的认知过程，无论是社交、语言还是情感方面。13而且这种认知发展并非只发生在儿童时期；它会持续我们的一生。104

Humans are the most neotenous of all mammals. In addition, we’re a learning animal; children take much longer to develop than other species because we are evolutionarily programmed to learn rather than to act by instinct. A delay in our development enabled a larger, more complex brain. It also meant that, in order to survive, humans needed extended care and instruction by adults.12 In fact, the extended care that we provide for children has many benefits. A longer period of learning allows us to acquire new skills and explore the world around us. It helps shape our cognitive processes, whether social, linguistic or emotional.13 And this cognitive development doesn’t just happen when we are children; it persists throughout our lives. 104

像许多哺乳动物一样，我们在幼年时最可爱，拥有洛伦兹儿童图式中的幼年特征。尽管这种特征之后会逐渐消失，但即使是人类成年人看起来也比其他哺乳动物的成年期更具幼态。虽然这一点早已为人所知，但直到最近才出现令人信服的理论来解释为什么我们幼态的外表如此重要。另一方面，幼态行为长期以来一直被认为对我们的进化至关重要。

Like many mammals, we are cutest when we are young and possess the juvenile traits of Lorenz’s child schema. Although it fades thereafter, even human adults look more neotenous than adults of other mammalian species. Although this has long been known, until recently there was no convincing theory to explain why our neotenous appearance is important. Neotenous behaviour, on the other hand, has long been characterised as vital to our evolution.

正如我之前提到的，康拉德·洛伦兹认为，我们能够从各种事物中发现可爱之处，从小动物到洋娃娃，这是一种特殊的机制，旨在鼓励我们养育孩子。然而，他也是行为幼态持续论的坚定支持者，认为将我们的探索和创造能力维持到成年期是我们进化的关键组成部分。洛伦兹引用了“老狗学不会新把戏”这句格言，指出所有以好奇心著称的物种都会随着年龄的增长而失去这种特质——除了人类，他称人类为“非专业化专家”。14古尔德将这一观点引向了一个非常有趣的方向。

As I mentioned earlier, Konrad Lorenz thought our ability to see cuteness in everything from small animals to dolls evolved as a specific mechanism to encourage us to nurture our children. However, he was a big supporter of behavioural neoteny, believing the maintenance of our exploratory, creative capabilities into adulthood to be a key component of our evolution. Citing the aphorism that an old dog can’t learn new tricks, Lorenz points out that individuals of every species noted for its curiosity lose this quality as they age – except for humans, whom he calls ‘specialists in non-specialisation’.14 Gould takes this idea in a very interesting direction.

我们幼态持续的外貌特征和我们行为成熟相对缓慢之间的联系从未被明确。科学家倾向于认为后者更为重要。但古尔德认为，幼态持续是人类进化的一个显著特征，我们应该将这两个方面都视为人类整体发展的关键。15

The link between our neotenous appearance and our comparative slowness to mature behaviourally was never clear. Scientists tended to consider the latter to be more important. But Gould argues that neoteny is such a clear characteristic of human evolution that we should consider both aspects of it as vital to our overall development.15

他写作的时代正值冷战时期，当时西伯利亚狐狸驯服实验的惊人结果尚未广为传播。尽管他知道所有家养动物都比它们的野生祖先更具幼态，但狐狸实验让我们得以观察这一过程。驯服的西伯利亚狐狸长大后，仍然保留着幼年时期的特征和行为。看来，对单一性状——友善——的选择，是一系列既幼态持续又可爱的变化的先决条件。105

He was writing in the depths of the Cold War, before the astonishing results of the experiment showing how Siberian foxes could be tamed had been widely disseminated. Although he knew that all domesticated animals are more neotenous than their wild forebears, the fox experiment allows us to see this process at work. When the tame Siberian foxes grow up, they retain juvenile features and behaviour. It seems that selection for a single trait – friendliness – is the precondition for a cascade of changes that are both neotenous and cute. 105

我们稍后会探讨其中的原理。现在，让我们从文化视角来探讨幼态外貌与行为——可爱与友善——之间的联系，并回到日本，看看最著名的漫画家：手冢治虫。

We’ll look at how this happens later on. For now, let’s examine the connection between neotenous looks and behaviour – between cuteness and friendliness – through a cultural lens, by returning to Japan to look at the most famous manga artist of them all: Osamu Tezuka.

“漫画之神”

The ‘God of Manga’

华特·迪士尼是二十世纪美国文化中“可爱”的先驱。据说，他曾在每位动画师的办公桌上钉了一张纸条，提醒他们：“保持可爱！” 16然而，日本的“可爱”大师手冢治虫却将“可爱”推向了更高的境界，甚至超越了迪士尼电影。他的名字是手冢治虫（1928-1989），也被称为“漫画之神”。

Walt Disney was the premier purveyor of cuteness in twentieth-century American culture. He is said to have pinned a note above the desk of each of his animators with the reminder: ‘Keep it cute!’16 However, Japan’s equivalent managed to push cuteness even beyond the level found in Disney films. His name is Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) and he is also known as the ‘God of Manga’.

正如我们所见，有些人将漫画的起源追溯到12世纪的《百兽图》。在江户时代，“漫画”一词指的是艺术家笔记本中收集的互不相关的素描。著名版画艺术家葛饰北斋（约1760-1849年）出版了15卷此类素描，主题包括面部表情、动物和植物，以及半人半兽的怪物和神话生物，其中许多都充满了讽刺的幽默感。1856年，葛饰北斋的漫画偶然来到巴黎，或许是作为一箱瓷器的包装材料，对莫奈、德加、高更和劳特累克等艺术家产生了巨大的影响。17

As we have seen, some people trace the origins of manga all the way back to the twelfth-century Scroll of Frolicking Animals. In the Edo period the word ‘manga’ referred to a collection of unrelated sketches in an artist’s notebook. Hokusai (c.1760–1849), the famed print artist, published fifteen volumes of such sketches, with subjects that included catalogues of facial expressions, animals and plants, along with half-human monsters and mythological creatures, many imbued with a satirical sense of humour. Hokusai’s manga greatly influenced artists such as Monet, Degas, Gauguin and Lautrec when they fortuitously made their way to Paris in 1856, perhaps as packing material in a crate of porcelain.17

现代漫画的灵感来自于 1919 年一位日本报纸记者从美国带回的美国漫画。18到了 20 世纪30年代，美国和日本的许多人物、漫画和动画片都被描绘成具有幼稚、可爱的形象。

Modern manga was inspired by the American comic strips that a Japanese newspaper reporter brought back from the US in 1919.18 By the 1930s, scores of characters, comics and cartoons in both the US and Japan were being drawn with a juvenile, cute appearance.

沉浸在这样的氛围中，手冢治虫从小学就开始创作自己的漫画。当时的男生经常会模仿106同学和老师画漫画；通常他们的漫画会被立即没收，但手冢治虫是个罕见的例外。到他十一岁时，他的漫画作品就已经受到老师和同学们的热切期待。我在东京的一家博物馆里看到过他学生时代作品的稀有存世本，他如此年轻就能将如此的活力和个性融入到自己的作品中，令人惊叹。

Immersed in this milieu, Tezuka began drawing his own manga in elementary school. Schoolboys would often caricature 106their classmates and teachers; usually their manga would be confiscated immediately, but Tezuka was a rare exception. By the time he was eleven his stories were eagerly awaited by teachers and fellow students alike. I’ve seen a rare surviving volume of his student work in a Tokyo museum, and the vitality and personality he could infuse into his drawings at such a young age are astonishing.

战后，手冢治虫放弃了医学生涯，成为一名全职漫画家。与华特·迪士尼不同，他创作了自己的故事，并不回避暴力元素，但他的漫画也相当可爱。正是手冢治虫的创作，使得日式“卡哇伊”风格往往比美式“可爱”更具幼稚性。他逐渐扩大额头和眼睛，让脸颊鼓起，身体线条更圆润，直到他笔下的角色甚至比他曾经受其启发的迪士尼电影中的人物还要可爱。19

After the war Tezuka gave up a career in medicine to become a full-time manga artist. Unlike Walt Disney, he created his own stories and didn’t shy away from violence, but he did make his manga cute. Tezuka is the reason that Japanese kawaii is often more neotenous than the American style of cuteness. He progressively enlarged foreheads and eyes, made cheeks bulge and body forms rounder, until his characters were even cuter than those of the Disney films he had been inspired by.19

手冢治虫的男孩机器人阿童木 ( Tetsuwan Atomu ) 可以说是日本最具标志性的人物——相当于米老鼠。20这个机器人男孩的心脏是核反应堆，大脑是电脑，他天性善良、无私，还有孩子般的外貌。在手冢治虫的故事中，这个男孩机器人是为了代替一位科学家在事故中失踪的儿子而制造的。科学家意识到他的机器人儿子永远不会长大，便把他卖给了马戏团，但阿童木从未动摇保卫人类和机器人世界的决心。他领导了一场机器人叛乱，为机械生物赢得了自己的权利法案，然后通过建立一个机器人和人类共同工作的社区，继续与不公正作斗争。

Tezuka’s boy robot, Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu) is arguably Japan’s most iconic character – their equivalent of Mickey Mouse.20 A robot boy with a nuclear reactor as a heart and a computer for a brain, he possesses a sweet, altruistic nature and childlike features. In Tezuka’s story, the boy robot is created to replace a scientist’s son lost in an accident. The scientist, realising that his robot son will never grow up, sells him to a circus, but Astro Boy never wavers in his desire to defend both the human and robot worlds. He leads a robot rebellion that wins mechanical beings their own Bill of Rights, then continues the fight against injustice by building a community of robots and humans who work together.

铁臂阿童木是一位高科技超级英雄，他的力量被天真可爱的外表所驯服，让他永远保持童真。他总是乐于助人，至今仍是日本的偶像。21与手冢治虫创作的其他角色一样，他代表着一种童真的纯真，为日本提供了一个摆脱帝国主义意识形态的机会，正是这种意识形态曾将日本拖入一场灾难性的战争。通过塑造可爱的主人公，手冢治虫得以107表达一种与日本法西斯帝国主义那种过于阳刚和功利的审美观不同的理念。22

Astro Boy is a high-tech superhero whose powers are tamed by the innocent cuteness that makes him a boy for ever. Always available to help those in need, he remains a national icon to this day.21 Like other characters created by Tezuka, he represents a childlike purity that offered Japan a chance to leave behind the imperialist ideology that had led the country into a disastrous war. By making his protagonists cute, Tezuka could 107express an alternative to the overtly masculine and utilitarian aesthetic that had informed Japan’s fascist imperialism.22

手冢治虫之所以能做到这一点，并非仅仅因为他笔下人物的外貌。事实上，可爱的角色此前曾被用于完全相反的用途，例如追求法西斯主义或帝国主义的目标。例如，一些战前的日本动画将殖民地人民描绘成可爱的动物，乐于帮助日本人建造飞机跑道或军事基地。23

It wasn’t the look of his characters alone that enabled Tezuka to do this. In fact, cute characters had previously been used in precisely the opposite manner, in the pursuit of fascist or imperialist goals. Some pre-war Japanese animation, for example, portrayed colonial people as cute animals, happy to help the Japanese construct an airstrip or military base.23

虽然铁臂阿童木看起来像个孩子，但手冢治虫漫画的叙事却远非幼稚。童真的特质让角色能够展现出青少年的特质，在权力和地位的争夺中，他们为那些所谓的成熟成年人的行为提供了一种另类的诠释。

Although Astro Boy looks like a kid, the narratives in Tezuka’s manga are far from childish. Childlike features allow characters to personify juvenile characteristics, through which they offer an alternative to the actions of supposedly mature adults in stories concerning the struggle for power and status.

漫画和动画学者托马斯·拉马尔指出，阿童木完美诠释了古尔德的“逆生长”理论；这个机器人男孩永远无法长大，这让手冢治虫得以将童真美德展现为进步的价值观。阿童木的可爱为成熟、强壮、有力者必然战胜幼弱、无害者这一假设提供了另一种可能性——他年少的天真与他机械的身体一样，都是力量的源泉。因此，拉马尔认为，我们不应将可爱局限于洛伦兹儿童图式中所描绘的一系列视觉属性；我们应该将其视为一种与行动相关的事物，而不仅仅是外表。24

The manga and anime scholar Thomas Lamarre points out that Astro Boy presents a perfect example of Gould’s ‘growth in reverse’; the fact that this robot boy can never grow up allows Tezuka to present childlike virtues as progressive values. Astro Boy’s cuteness offers an alternative to the assumption that the mature, strong and powerful must prevail over the young, weak and harmless – his youthful naivety is as much a source of strength as his robot body is. For this reason, Lamarre argues that we shouldn’t see cuteness as limited to the set of visual attributes depicted in Lorenz’s child schema; we should recognise it as something that involves action rather than mere appearance.24

如果天真和幼稚是可爱唯一的优势，我们仍然会陷入浪漫主义的观念，认为童年是失落的伊甸园。然而，幼态持续也包括幼年行为，例如友善、好奇心、心理可塑性和灵活性。扩展可爱的定义，将这些特质纳入其中，不仅有助于解释米老鼠和铁臂阿童木等文化偶像的流行，还能为人类的进化开辟新的视角。

If innocence and naivety were the only strengths associated with cuteness, we’d still be trapped in the Romantic notion that childhood is a lost Eden. However, neoteny also includes juvenile behaviours such as friendliness, curiosity, mental plasticity and flexibility. Expanding the definition of cuteness to include these qualities not only helps explain the popularity of cultural icons like Mickey Mouse and Astro Boy; it also opens another view into our evolution.

“进步的行进”是一幅著名的人类进化阶段图108。左边是一只猿猴，指关节着地。接下来是各种类人猿，每个类人猿的站姿都略微挺直，身高也略微升高。这条线最终到达智人，大步迈向光明的未来。这种线性渐进的进化观念在科学界已遭质疑，但在文化领域却依然存在。另一方面，幼态持续则挑战了成熟是进步行进的观念。

The March of Progress is a famous illustration of the supposed 108stages of human evolution. One the left is an ape, its knuckles on the ground. Various hominids follow, each standing a little straighter and taller. The line culminates in Homo sapiens, striding off into a bright future. This idea of evolution as linear and progressive has been discredited in the scientific community, but it endures in culture at large. On the other hand, neoteny challenges the idea of maturity as a march of progress.

米老鼠、泰迪熊、家养动物以及人类都具有幼态持续性。此外，正如手塚在《铁臂阿童木》中所展现的那样，幼年特质延续到成年期也蕴含着潜在的益处。起初看似单纯的对可爱的偏好，如今却似乎隐藏着深刻的内涵。接下来，我们将聚焦幼态持续性的一个特定特征，探索这些深层含义，它为我们打开了一扇通往可爱灵魂的窗户。

Mickey Mouse, teddy bears, domesticated animals and human beings are all neotenous. Furthermore, as Tezuka’s work on Astro Boy shows, the persistence of juvenile traits into adulthood offers potential benefits. What at first seemed like a mere preference for cuteness now appears to have hidden depths. Next, we’ll explore those depths by focusing on a specific feature of neoteny that provides a window into the soul of the cute.

我们的眼白

The whites of our eyes

手冢治虫运用幼态持续的关键技巧在于其角色的大眼睛。大眼睛是早期报纸漫画和迪士尼动画中可爱角色的特征，但手冢治虫让它们更加突出。大眼睛占据了页面上更多的空白，不仅可爱，还能通过展现角色的感受来吸引读者的注意力——手冢治虫的技巧背后有着合理的生物学原理。

A key technique in Tezuka’s deployment of neoteny lies in his characters’ large eyes. Big eyes were a feature of the cute characters in the earliest newspaper cartoons as well as in Disney animation, but Tezuka made them even more prominent. Large eyes that encompass more white space on the page are not only cute, but also capture the readers’ attention by showing us what the characters are feeling – and there are sound biological principles behind Tezuka’s technique.

猫咪那双神秘的眼睛，如同狗狗那双充满灵性的眼睛，瞳孔之外完全是彩色的。人类是唯一拥有白色巩膜（眼球外层）的物种，25而且我们的眼睛比其他灵长类动物的眼睛要长得多。26这些差异非常有用。首先，它们使我们的眼睛更加显眼；当我们直视前方时，人类眼睛中可见的白色区域是猩猩棕色巩膜的三倍。27其次 109，我们从很小的时候就被眼白所吸引。儿童和成人都喜欢带有可见白色巩膜的毛绒玩具。28追随他人的目光对于发展社会认知至关重要——实验发现，类人猿更多地追随头部运动而不是眼球运动，而人类婴儿几乎完全追随眼球运动。29此外，七个月大的婴儿甚至在意识形成之前就能对眼白闪现的社交暗示（例如恐惧的目光）做出快速反应。30

The enigmatic eyes of cats, like the soulful eyes of dogs, are entirely coloured outside the pupil. Humans are the only species with a white sclera, the outer coating that surrounds the eyeball,25 and our eyes are extraordinarily elongated compared to those of other primates.26 These differences are extremely useful. First, they make our eyes more visible; there’s three times more white area visible in human eyes when we are looking straight ahead than in the brown sclerae of orangutans.27 109Second, we are drawn to the whites of the eyes from a very young age. Both children and adults prefer stuffed animals with visible white sclerae.28 Following the gaze of others is important for developing social cognition – experiments have found that great apes follow head movements more than eye movements, while human babies follow eye movements almost exclusively.29 In addition, seven-month-old infants quickly respond to social cues flashed by the whites of eyes, such as fearful gazes, even before conscious awareness is possible.30

成年后，我们的眼睛会传达我们在群体中的存在感。研究人员在办公室的“诚信箱”上贴上眼贴，用于支付咖啡费用，结果发现人们贡献的金额几乎增加了30%。31根据“合作眼假说”，32白色巩膜的进化源于人类对更高层次的社交互动的需求，这种互动需要相互关注和合作。33其他动物没有白色巩膜，因为它们更容易被捕食者发现；而我们必须拥有白色巩膜，因为沟通优势大于危险。这的确是一个偶然的突变——但或许它只是某种更大机制的一部分。

After we mature, our eyes signal our presence in a community. When researchers placed eye stickers on an ‘honesty box’ for coffee expenses at an office, they found that people contributed almost 30 per cent more money.31 According to a theory known as the ‘cooperative eye hypothesis’,32 white sclerae evolved due to the human need for enhanced levels of social interaction that require mutual attention and cooperation.33 Other animals don’t have white sclerae because they make them too visible to predators; we must have them because the communicative advantages outweighed the dangers. A fortuitous mutation indeed – but perhaps it was part of something much larger.

一项新理论将白色巩膜置于驯化综合症的框架内，驯化综合症是家养动物共有的一系列生理和行为特征。34这听起来可能很奇怪——毕竟，人类是唯一拥有大白眼的动物——但家养动物，从狗和猫到马和牛，通常脸上有白色斑纹，爪子上有白色袜子。似乎造成我们眼白和宠物白袜子的生物学机制可以回答达尔文关于驯化的一个问题：如果没有人刻意选择，这些不同的特征怎么会出现？但这项新假设不仅解释了家养动物之间的相似性，还为我们在动物王国中的地位提供了一个完全不同的视角。它还将可爱视为人类的核心。110

A new theory places white sclerae within the framework of the domestication syndrome, the suite of physical and behavioural traits common to domesticated animals.34 This might sound strange – after all, humans are the only animals that have large white eyes – but domesticated animals, from dogs and cats to horses and cows, often have white blazes on their faces or white socks on their paws. It seems that the biological mechanism responsible for both the whites of our eyes and our pets’ white socks may answer one of Darwin’s questions about domestication: how could these different traits appear if no one was deliberately selecting them? But this new hypothesis goes beyond explaining the similarities among domesticated animals to offer a completely different view of our place in the animal kingdom. It also places cuteness at the heart of being human. 110

神经嵴

The neural crest

格雷戈尔·孟德尔在豌豆上的开创性研究表明，一个基因可以使植物呈现黄色，而另一个基因可以使植物呈现绿色。但现在我们知道，有些基因功能多样。它们不仅能控制身体的不同特征，还能控制发育的时间。这完全取决于它们调控身体的哪个部位。35

Gregor Mendel’s pioneering work on pea plants showed that one gene can make a yellow plant while another can make one green, but we now know that some genes have many jobs. They can control not only different features of the body but also the timing at which development occurs. It all depends on which part of the body they regulate.35

所有脊椎动物的胚胎在受孕几周后，都会发育出特殊的细胞，这些细胞出现在脊柱即将生长的位置。这些神经嵴细胞是一种干细胞，它们会迁移到身体的各个部位，协助不同性状的发育。它们数量的轻微减少、迁移的延迟或增殖能力的下降，都会对其调控的诸多特征产生不同的影响，36其中许多特征与驯化综合症有关。例如，当这些细胞向动物的头部、腿部和尾部移动时，它们会影响黑色素的生成；如果它们没有完全到达这些末端，就会导致额头、爪子和尾尖出现白色的毛发斑块——或者人类的眼睛出现白斑。37

A few weeks after conception, the embryos of all vertebrates develop special cells that appear where the spine will grow. A type of stem cell, these neural-crest cells migrate to various parts of the body to assist in the development of different traits. A slight reduction in their number, a delay in their migration or a reduced ability to proliferate produces different results in the many features they regulate,36 a striking number of which are associated with the domestication syndrome. For example, when these cells move towards an animal’s head, legs and tail they affect the production of melanin; if they never quite arrive at these extremities, the result is white patches of fur on foreheads, paws and the tip of tails – or white eyes in humans.37

神经嵴细胞还会影响耳朵和尾巴软骨的发育。细胞减少会导致耳朵松软，尾巴变短且卷曲。达尔文发现，松软的耳朵在狗、猪和驯服的西伯利亚狐中最为常见，但在所有家养哺乳动物中都可能出现。38 这些细胞也以类似的方式影响颌骨和牙齿的发育：这些区域的细胞减少导致家养动物的颌骨小、鼻子短、脸扁平、牙齿较小。39 这些家养特征也具有幼态持续性。成年狗看起来更像狼崽而不是成年狼，因为狼在成熟时会失去这些特征，而狗不会。因此，如果家养动物像人类一样具有幼态持续性，并且它们是由于神经嵴调控的变化而变成这样的，那么人类是否像狗和猫一样被驯化了？

Neural-crest cells also affect the development of cartilage in the ears and tail. Fewer cells cause floppy ears and shorter, curly tails. Darwin found that floppy ears, most common in dogs, pigs and the tame Siberian foxes, can appear in every domesticated mammalian species.38 These cells also affect the development of the jaw and teeth in a similar way: fewer cells in these areas account for the small jaws, short snouts, flat faces and smaller teeth of domesticated animals.39 These features of domestication are also neotenous. An adult dog looks more like a wolf pup than an adult wolf because wolves lose these characteristics as they mature, while dogs do not. So if domesticated animals are neotenous like humans, and they became so due to changes regulated by the neural crest, then are humans domesticated like dogs and cats?

这一理论存在一个大问题。神经嵴细胞111也会影响大脑发育；如果神经嵴细胞出现得更慢或数量更少，大脑发育就会更慢，最终体积也会更小。家养动物的大脑比它们的野生祖先要小，这一特征与神经嵴细胞活性降低有关。40然而，人类的大脑却很大。家养动物和人类在幼态外观上的相似之处肯定到此为止了，但我们也应该考虑我们头骨的形状。

There is one big problem with this theory. Neural-crest cells 111also affect brain development; if they arrive more slowly or in fewer numbers, the brain will grow more slowly and end up smaller. Domesticated animals have smaller brains than their wild forebears, a trait that has been linked to reduced neural-crest-cell activity.40 Humans, however, have large brains. The parallel between the neotenous appearance of domesticated animals and human beings surely must end here, but we should also consider the shape of our skulls.

人类头骨最独特的特征是其球形，这使得我们的头部呈圆形，像气球一样。正如布莱恩·黑尔和凡妮莎·威廉姆斯所说，尼安德特人的头部形状像橄榄球。再往前追溯，直立人的头部呈面包状。41

The most unique feature of the human skull is its globular shape, which makes our heads rounded, like balloons. As Brian Hare and Vanessa Williams put it, Neanderthal heads were shaped like footballs. Going back even further, Homo erectus had a loaf-shaped head.41

我们出生时，大脑只有成年人的25%，但大脑会快速生长，使幼儿拥有洛伦兹儿童图式中出现的圆圆大头。42神经嵴细胞影响大多数颅骨的发育，导致我们头部呈圆形。43此外，球形头骨为我们的大脑做好了更高级的认知能力和语言发展的准备。44

We’re born with brains that are only 25 per cent of their adult size, but they grow rapidly, giving young children the large, round heads that appear in Lorenz’s child schema.42 Neural-crest cells affect the development of most cranial bones, resulting in our rounded heads.43 In addition, globular skulls prepare our brains for higher cognitive abilities and language development.44

这表明神经嵴细胞的影响不仅限于外观。事实上，它们在调节压力、恐惧和攻击性的系统发育中发挥着重要作用。45神经嵴细胞迁移延迟，可能是由于早期发育过程中血清素较多所致，导致肾上腺缩小，应激反应降低。46血清素水平升高，使西伯利亚狐狸的性格更加平静、友善，这是西伯利亚狐狸身上最早出现的变化之一。血清素水平升高是驯化的特征之一，也是上述家养动物大脑萎缩以及我们大脑呈气球状的最可能原因。47

This suggests that the effects of neural-crest cells are not limited to appearance. In fact they have a significant role in the development of the systems that regulate stress, fear and aggression.45 Delays in neural-crest-cell migration, possibly due to more serotonin in early development, result in smaller adrenal glands and lowered stress responses.46 Increased serotonin, which makes for a calmer, more friendly personality, was one of the first changes noted in the Siberian foxes. One of the hallmarks of domestication, an increase in serotonin is also the most likely reason for both the brain shrinkage in domesticated animals noted above and for our balloon-shaped heads.47

一些被认为是人类独有的特征，例如白色的眼睛和圆圆的头，似乎正是使动物比112野生动物更温顺、更友好、更可爱的一系列特征的一部分。神经嵴假说将幼态外观与这些社会行为联系起来。综合起来，它们构成了一幅路线图，揭示了可爱如何影响我们以及我们伴侣动物的进化。

Some of the traits considered unique to humans, such as white eyes and round heads, seem to be part of the suite of traits that make animals tamer, friendlier and cuter than their 112wild counterparts. The neural-crest hypothesis links a neotenous appearance to these social behaviours. Taken together, they are a roadmap to the way cuteness may have influenced our evolution as well as that of our companion animals.

在二十世纪初的美国，青春洋溢、幼稚的外表与高度社交化的行为相结合，突然风靡一时。二十世纪从一开始就被称为“儿童的世纪”。“可爱”（cute）一词正是在这场热潮兴起之前获得了现代意义。在继续探讨可爱如何影响人类进化之前，让我们先回顾一下它在美国文化中的兴起。

In early-twentieth-century America the combination of a youthful, neotenous appearance and highly social behaviour suddenly exploded in popularity. From its very beginning, the twentieth century was called ‘the century of the child’. The word ‘cute’ attained its modern meaning just before this boom commenced. Before continuing to discern how cuteness may have influenced our evolution, let’s turn back to its rise in American culture.

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“可爱”的现代意义

Cute Attains its Modern Meaning

“对于一个六岁的孩子来说，这难道不是一个可爱的答案吗？”这句话出现在T.H.阿瑟1841年的一篇短篇小说中。1十九世纪中叶，随着滑稽的家庭趣闻开始在杂志上流传，其中一些杂志开始使用“可爱”一词来形容儿童早熟的行为。1856年，一封致《尼克博克》（Knickerbocker ）编辑的信提到了孩子们“可爱的说法”，同样的短语也出现在1857年的一期《妇女储藏室》（ Ladies ' Repository）中。2读者​​很快就开始提交他们自己的家庭趣闻。文学学者安吉拉·索比（Angela Sorby）认为，这形成了一个反馈回路，读者一旦在纸上看到自己的孩子幼稚的滑稽动作，就会期待从他们身上获得“小小的快乐” 。3 114

The line ‘Wasn’t that a cute answer for a six-year-old to make?’ appears in an 1841 short story by T. H. Arthur.1 As comical domestic anecdotes began to circulate in magazines in the mid-nineteenth century, a few of them began to use the word ‘cute’ to describe the precocious behaviour of children. A letter to the editor of the Knickerbocker referred to children’s ‘cute sayings’ in 1856, and the same phrase appeared in an issue of the Ladies’ Repository in 1857.2 Readers soon began to submit their own domestic anecdotes. The literary scholar Angela Sorby suggests that this caused a feedback loop in which readers came to expect the ‘small jolts of pleasure’ delivered by childish antics from their own children, once they had encountered it on the page.3 114

尽管“可爱”美学在十九世纪中叶已开始在大众文化中兴起，但该词当时仍仅限于形容聪明和新奇，尚未与外貌联系起来。《牛津英语词典》将“cute”的现代用法追溯到1834年和1857年，当时该词首次被用来指代事物而非人。学者们经常将这些用法——尤其是1857年的例子“多可爱的小袜子啊！”——视为该词在现代的首次出现。4他们或许没错，但“cute”在当时通常被用作“clever”的同义词。《牛津英语词典》引用的小袜子属于洋娃娃，5而制作精良的物品可以被描述为“可爱”，无论它们看起来如何。

Although the cute aesthetic had started to emerge in popular culture by the mid-nineteenth century, the word was still limited to describing cleverness and novelty and had yet to be associated with appearance. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the modern use of ‘cute’ to 1834 and 1857, when the word was first used to refer to things rather than people. Scholars often identify these usages – especially the 1857 example, ‘What cute little socks!’ – as the word’s first modern appearances.4 They may well be right, but ‘cute’ was commonly used as a synonym for ‘clever’ at that time. The little socks cited by the OED belonged to a doll,5 and cleverly made things might be described as cute, no matter what they looked like.

然而，这仍然是重要的一步，因为此前“cute”（可爱）一词仅指狡猾的行为。到了19世纪70年代，这种情况开始发生变化。美国畅销儿童杂志《圣尼古拉斯》就是一个很好的例子。在1870年之前，该杂志将“cute”（可爱）一词用作“clever”（聪明）的同义词，将笑话、诡计和校长描述为“cute”（可爱）。到了19世纪70年代，该杂志也开始用它来描述鸟类等微小事物的外表，最后还用它来描述儿童。

This was still an important step, however, as previously ‘cute’ had been applied only to cunning behaviour. In the 1870s this began to change. St. Nicholas magazine, a popular American children’s periodical, provides a telling example. Before 1870 it used the word as a synonym for clever, describing jokes, tricks and schoolmasters as cute. In the 1870s the magazine also began to use it to describe the appearance of diminutive things like birds and, finally, children.

1872年，一本类似出版物《我们的年轻人》刊登了一篇故事，讲述了一个五岁男孩醒来后发现婴儿服不见了。他的母亲给他穿上一件“漂亮的格子夹克”，上面有白色褶边、金色纽扣、裤子，领结上系着一个小蝴蝶结：“他看起来真可爱！”她惊呼道。6虽然这种成人给孩子穿上复古服装的爱好可以追溯到18世纪的儿童肖像画，但它却花了一百年的时间才被称为“可爱” 。7

In an 1872 story from a similar publication called Our Young Folks, a five-year-old boy wakes up to find his baby clothes missing. His mother dresses him in a ‘pretty plaid jacket’ with white ruffles, gold-coloured buttons, pantaloons and a little bow for a cravat: ‘How cute he looks!’ she exclaims.6 While this adult penchant for dressing children in vintage costumes dated back to eighteenth-century child portraiture, it had taken a hundred years to be called cute.7

不久之后，成人杂志开始采用这种新用法，将“cute”视为一种俚语。1890年，《哈泼周刊》刊登了一篇题为《狗界君主》的文章，其中描绘了一位时髦的年轻女性用这个词来形容一只中国哈巴狗的脸。8这个词现代含义的出现并非偶然。它诞生于“可爱”在流行文化中日益流行的时代115。20世纪初，这种审美观念以前所未有的方式蓬勃发展。

A little later adults’ magazines began to adopt the new usage by treating ‘cute’ as a form of slang. An 1890 Harper’s Weekly article entitled ‘Monarchs of Dogdom’ imagines a trendy young woman, using the word to describe a Chinese pug’s face.8 The arrival of the word’s modern meaning was no accident. It came at a time when cuteness was increasingly visible in popular 115culture. In the early twentieth century the aesthetic would flower in a way it never had before.

儿童的世纪

The century of the child

伊丽莎·李·福伦（Eliza Lee Follen）的诗《三只小猫》（它们丢了手套）和莉迪亚·西格妮（Lydia Sigourney）的《关于猫》，预示着可爱猫咪的兴起，并在十九世纪逐渐增多。9随着人们对淘气的容忍度逐渐提高，它们积极的动物特质后来与孩子们联系在一起。

Eliza Lee Follen’s poem ‘Three Little Kittens’ (who lost their mittens), along with Lydia Sigourney’s ‘Concerning ye Catte’, heralded a proliferation of cute cats that slowly grew during the nineteenth century.9 Their positive animalistic qualities were later associated with children, as the new tolerance for naughtiness spread.

这一进程在十九世纪末期开始稳步推进，维多利亚时代的道德严肃性开始演变成对童年的全新欣赏。蒙田曾谴责将儿童视为表演猴子，如今三个世纪过去了，儿童逐渐被视为一种娱乐方式，而享受这种新娱乐方式的方式也随之激增。

This process was well under way by the late nineteenth century, as the Victorian air of moral seriousness began to evolve into a new appreciation of childhood. Three centuries since Montaigne had railed against viewing children as performing monkeys, they became valued as a source of diversion – and ways of enjoying this new form of entertainment proliferated.

PT·巴纳姆的另一个奇思妙想是将两个小人物——拇指汤姆将军（查尔斯·斯特拉顿饰）和拉维尼亚·沃伦——的婚礼推广成一场公众盛会。这场婚礼于1863年举行，吸引了全国人民的目光，第二天林肯总统就接见了这对新婚夫妇。10 《纽约时报》的一篇关于这场婚礼的文章列举了众多慕名而来的人群的赞美之词，据估计，当时有两万名女性出席。这场婚礼被誉为“漂亮”、“优雅”、“美丽”、“女王般”、“迷人”、“亲切”和“可爱”。“可爱”这个词或许没有被提及，但接下来发生的事情表明，流行文化越来越倾向于用这个新词来形容这场盛会。

Another of P. T. Barnum’s brainstorms was to promote the marriage of two little people, General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton) and Lavinia Warren, as a public spectacle. Held in 1863, the wedding captured the imagination of the entire nation, with the newly-weds received by President Lincoln the following day.10 A New York Times article about the event includes a list of compliments rained down by the admiring crowd, estimated to include 20,000 women. The wedding was called pretty, graceful, beautiful, queenly, charming, dear and lovely. The word ‘cute’ may have been absent, but what happened next shows how popular culture was increasingly attuned to spectacles that would shortly be described by this new word.

很快，美国各地的城镇都纷纷效仿斯特拉顿和沃伦的婚礼，为两个孩子“结婚”。这些“拇指婚礼”一直延续到20世纪，而且可能非常116隆重。一场婚礼中，多达50个孩子可能被分配到不同的角色，而成年人则在一旁观看。11这类婚礼的出版指南建议使用精致的服装，并包含充满讽刺意味的誓言，例如新郎承诺完成的家务的详细承诺。12就像婴儿秀一样，“拇指婚礼”为成年人，尤其是女性，开辟了一个在公共场合享受可爱的地方。13

Soon towns and cities across America were holding their own versions of Stratton and Warren’s wedding ceremony by ‘marrying’ two children. These ‘Tom Thumb weddings’ endured well into the twentieth century and could be very 116elaborate. As many as fifty children might be allocated a role in a single event, as adults watched from the sidelines.11 Published guides for such weddings advised on the use of elaborate costumes and contained scripts filled with satirical vows, such as detailed promises about the household chores that the groom promised to perform.12 Like baby shows, Tom Thumb weddings carved out a space for adults, and especially women, to enjoy cuteness in public.13

从19世纪70年代开始，以吸引儿童为主题的舞台剧开始受到成年人的欢迎。14这类作品的戏剧评论常常宣称，它们“适合所有年龄段的儿童”，这是巴纳姆成名的一句话。15诸如婴儿秀和儿童婚礼之类的活动，加上舞台上儿童角色的激增，让成年人学会了将儿童视为一种奇观，一个充满娱乐性的怀旧人物。16

From the 1870s stage plays designed to appeal to children became popular with adults.14 Theatrical reviews of such productions would often proclaim that they were ‘for children of all ages’, to use a phrase for which Barnum became known.15 Events like the baby shows and child weddings, combined with the boom in child characters appearing onstage, taught adults to see the child as a spectacle, an entertaining nostalgic figure.16

拥抱孩子的可爱，让成年人沉迷于安吉拉·索比所说的“一种追求新奇、情感释放和公共娱乐的精神”。17然而，我们稍后会看到，直到人们意识到孩子们的淘气可以被公众欣赏，可爱审美才真正流行起来。18

Embracing the cuteness of children enabled adults to indulge in what Angela Sorby calls ‘an ethos of novelty, emotional release, and public entertainment’.17 However, we’ll see later on that the aesthetic of cute didn’t really take off until the idea emerged that children’s naughtiness could be publicly appreciated.18

1880年至1920年间，儿童在跨大西洋大众文化中占据着如此重要的地位，以至于作家们将这种现象称为“儿童崇拜”，并宣称二十世纪是“儿童的世纪”。19一个可能的原因是，人们对消费资本主义兴起所引发的阶级分化和种族紧张局势感到担忧。由于成年人认为童年与成年期的腐败相距甚远，儿童角色成为了能够化解这些紧张局势的人物，至少在书页或舞台上，它们能够帮助人们和睦相处。20

Children were so central to transatlantic mass culture between 1880 and 1920 that writers dubbed the phenomenon the ‘cult of the child’ and proclaimed the twentieth century to be ‘the century of the child’.19 One possible reason concerned anxieties about class stratification and racial tensions, caused by the rise of consumer capitalism. Because adults presumed that childhood was remote from the corruptions of adulthood, child characters became figures who could defuse these tensions and, at least on the page or onstage, help everyone get along.20

新的美国可爱美学带有一种无政府主义的特质，将感伤与嬉戏融为一体，而将“acute”（敏锐）缩写为“cute”（可爱）所带来的柔和感正是其表达的关键。正如文学学者玛拉·古巴尔（Marah Gubar）所写，到117了19世纪末，儿童已被确立为“吸引力的缩影，其魅力足以在字面上和象征意义上阻止交通”。21可爱的孩子被认为能够通过栖息在两个世界之间的边缘空间来弥合成年人之间的社会隔阂：当然，这不仅指儿童与成人之间的隔阂，也指男性与女性、贫富之间以及黑人与白人之间的隔阂。22

The new American cute aesthetic had an anarchic quality that combined sentimentality with playfulness, and the softness that accompanied the shortening of ‘acute’ to ‘cute’ was key to its expression. As the literary scholar Marah Gubar writes, by 117the late nineteenth century the child had been set up as ‘the epitome of attractiveness, a figure whose power to charm can literally and figuratively stop traffic’.21 The cute child was seen as capable of bridging social divisions among adults by inhabiting a liminal space between two worlds: between child and adult, of course, but also between male and female, rich and poor and black and white.22

就这样，一种观念逐渐深入人心：那种压倒性的可爱感可以融化人心，不受社会习俗的限制。根据不同的使用方式，这种特质既可以挑战，也可以强化19世纪和20世纪初关于当时最紧迫的社会问题之一——种族差异——的道德观念。

In this way, the idea took hold that the overwhelming feeling of cuteness could melt hearts in spite of social conventions. Depending on how it was used, this quality could either challenge or reinforce nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century mores in regard to one of the most pressing social issues of the time: racial difference.

可爱竞赛

The race to cute

PT·巴纳姆的婴儿秀被广泛模仿，但也带有明显的种族主义色彩。巴纳姆宣称，评判婴儿的标准“尤其在于他们是否是真正的美国血统”，他不允许黑人、亚裔或美洲原住民婴儿参赛。虽然爱尔兰和德国婴儿可以参赛，但报纸文章也对他们进行了批评，指责他们父母口音浓重，卫生习惯差。23

P. T. Barnum’s baby shows were widely imitated, but they were also explicitly racist. Barnum declared that the babies would be judged ‘especially on the crowning merit of their being genuine original American stock’, and he did not permit Black, Asian or Native American infants to enter. Although Irish and German babies were allowed, they were also singled out in newspaper articles with disparaging remarks about thick parental accents and poor hygiene.23

并非所有报纸都支持巴纳姆。 《纽约论坛报》刊登了一篇读者与巴纳姆之间激烈的信件交锋，最终以社论评论收尾：“能有真正的全国性婴儿秀，把全国如此大一部分人排除在外吗？” 事实上，巴纳姆的竞争对手们发起了“有色人种婴儿秀”，有时甚至与巴纳姆的比赛同时举行。然而，反映出当时的种族主义态度，非白人婴儿比赛往往因其新颖性而受到称赞，而参赛者获得的赞誉则较少。24 118

Not all newspapers supported Barnum. A sharp exchange of letters in the New York Tribune between a reader and Barnum ended with the editorial comment ‘Can there be any truly National Baby Show from which so large a part of the nation is excluded?’ And in fact Barnum’s competitors launched ‘coloured baby shows’, sometimes organised to occur simultaneously with the impresario’s contests. Reflecting the racist attitudes of the times, however, the non-white baby competitions tended to be lauded for their novelty, with contestants accorded fewer accolades.24 118

尽管如此，这些“有色人种”婴儿节目让白人观众有机会观察真实的婴儿，而不是刻板的虚构人物。非裔美国人意识到将自己的孩子作为公共娱乐对象的弊端，但许多人也乐于借此机会展现自己的孩子属于中产阶级家庭文化。25

Still, these ‘coloured’ baby shows gave white audiences a chance to observe real babies rather than stereotypical fictional characters. African Americans were aware of the pitfalls of offering their children up as objects of public entertainment, but many also welcomed the chance to show that their babies belonged to the culture of middle-class domesticity.25

这并不一定意味着可爱能化解种族歧视。19 世纪 90 年代末，一场“有色人种”婴儿秀印制了传单，将婴儿描述为“小浣熊”和“黑皮肤小孩”，随后一群黑人母亲给《洛杉矶时报》写了一封抗议信。26由于这未能阻止种族主义广告，几乎所有母亲都退出了节目。27尽管她们将这场比赛视为展示非裔美国人家庭生活的机会，但她们也敏锐地意识到，即使是她们孩子的可爱也可能很快被用来对付她们。

This didn’t necessarily mean that cuteness defused racism. After a ‘coloured’ baby show in the late 1890s printed handbills that described the babies as ‘little coons’ and ‘piccaninnies’, a delegation of Black mothers wrote a letter of protest to the Los Angeles Times.26 When this failed to halt the racist advertising, almost all the mothers withdrew their babies from the show.27 Although they viewed the contest as an opportunity to showcase African American domesticity, they were also acutely aware of how quickly even the cuteness of their babies could be turned against them.

“piccaninny”（黑脸小孩）是对黑人儿童刻板的种族主义描述（“pick”源于“采摘棉花”），最早出现在黑脸吟游表演中。28 吟游表演是一种独特的美国娱乐形式，始于19世纪初，并持续到20世纪初。吟游表演以白人演员为主，他们化妆后假扮成非裔美国人，同时表演一些刻板的故事，并伴以滑稽的歌舞。在长达一个世纪的演出中，吟游表演团体变得如此受欢迎，甚至跨越大西洋，在欧洲巡回演出。

The ‘piccaninny’ is a stereotypically racist depiction of the Black child (‘pick’ comes from ‘picking cotton’) that first appeared in blackface minstrel shows.28 A uniquely American form of entertainment that began in the early nineteenth century and persisted into the early twentieth, minstrel performances featured white performers who put on make-up and pretended to be African American, while presenting stereotyped tales along with comic songs and dances. During their century-long run, minstrel groups became so popular that they even crossed the Atlantic and toured Europe.

涂黑脸的白人窃取了自由和被奴役的非裔美国人的说话方式、手势和歌曲，并加以修改以适应白人观众。这种行为既是种族主义的，也应受谴责；吟游表演的幌子是奴隶制有趣、公正且自然。29

The white men who performed blackface stole speech patterns, gestures and songs from free and enslaved African Americans, altering them to suit a white audience. This was both racist and reprehensible; minstrel shows were staged under the pretence that slavery was amusing, just and natural.29

吟游艺人在其外貌和行为举止上都沿用了非裔美国人的刻板印象，例如夸张的大眼睛和大嘴巴；肢体松散、步履蹒跚的舞蹈119风格；滑稽的摔倒和暴力事故；以及如同骗子般的行为，这些都强化了种族关系的社会规范，也削弱了当时的社会规范。当这些刻板角色开始以“piccaninny”（黑小子）的形式出现时，他们就融入了不断发展的美国可爱文化。到了19世纪中叶，吟游艺团开始引入许多儿童演员，他们的演出被宣传为适合全家观看。评论指出，这些以成人扮演儿童，反之亦然的舞台表演，让孩子们乐在其中。30

Minstrel performers employed stereotypes of African Americans in their appearance and their behaviour, with exaggerated wide eyes and mouths; a loose-limbed, shuffling dance 119style; comic pratfalls and violent accidents; and trickster-like behaviour that both reinforced and undercut social norms about racial relations. They were absorbed into the evolving American cute culture when the stereotyped characters began to include children in the form of the ‘piccaninny’. By the mid-nineteenth century minstrel companies included many child performers, and their shows were advertised as suitable for the whole family. Reviews noted that children were highly entertained by these stage performances that featured adults acting like children, and vice versa.30

这些涂着黑脸的儿童演员们欢快活泼，充满活力，扮演着超越童真概念的奇幻角色。31他们后来启发了米老鼠等动画人物的创作——其中一个角色尤其可以向我们展示这一切是如何发生的。

Cheerful and full of youthful energy, the child performers in blackface played fantastical characters that existed outside the concept of childhood innocence.31 They would later inspire animated characters like Mickey Mouse – and one character in particular can show us how this happened.

托普西和她的后代

Topsy and her progeny

哈里特·比彻·斯托的反奴隶制小说《汤姆叔叔的小屋》于1852年出版后立即引起轰动。小说巧妙地将童年的两种观念一分为二，塑造了天真无邪的白人伊娃和狡猾的黑人托普西。无私的伊娃照顾着身边所有的成年人，而托普西则展现着滑稽可爱的淘气——这一点在小说被搬上舞台后尤为明显。十九世纪后期，这两种性格特征融合在一起，形成了新的美国式可爱美学。

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin was an immediate hit when it was published in 1852. The novel neatly bifurcates two notions of childhood in the characters of the innocent Eva, who is white, and the cunning trickster Topsy, who is black. The selfless Eva takes care of all the adults around her, while Topsy showcases comical, adorable mischief – which was especially evident when the novel made the transition to the stage. Later in the nineteenth century these two characteristics became melded together to form the new American cute aesthetic.

小说本身就很受欢迎，但《汤姆叔叔的小屋》舞台版很快便登陆美国各地剧院，随后又在欧洲上演，取得了更大的成功。第一个版本在小说出版的同年首演，而PT·巴纳姆对最新奇观保持着高度关注，于次年上演了一部舞台剧。舞台120版由一个涂着黑脸的白人小孩扮演托普西，将这个刻板的角色变成了全国性的热门。32

Popular as the book was, the stage versions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that soon arrived in theatres around the US, and then Europe, were even more successful. The first version debuted in the year that the novel was published, and P. T. Barnum, ever alert to the latest spectacle, mounted one the following year. Featuring a white child in blackface playing Topsy, these stage 120versions turned this stereotypical character into a nationwide hit.32

在舞台上，托普西成了一个滑稽刻板的无礼黑人孩子形象，斯托夫人关于被奴役儿童同样无辜的论点也站不住脚。当托普西的滑稽滑稽行为被凸显出来时，任何关于她是否无辜的质疑都变得毫无意义。33

Onstage, Topsy became the comic stereotype of an impudent black child, and Stowe’s argument that enslaved children were also innocent was lost. When Topsy’s comic antics are highlighted, any question of her innocence becomes moot.33

托普西成了《汤姆叔叔的小屋》舞台剧的明星，扮演这个角色的儿童演员往往占据了主要位置。在舞台剧版本层出不穷的版本中，有时舞台上会同时出现两个托普西。34托普西纯粹是一场闹剧，与其说是一个真人，不如说是一个玩物：

Topsy became the star of the Uncle Tom’s Cabin stage productions, and child actors playing the role often received top billing. In the proliferation of stage versions, there were sometimes two Topsies onstage simultaneously.34 Topsy was pure spectacle, more a plaything than a human character:

剧作家乔治·艾肯的舞台版《汤姆叔叔的小屋》融合了许多吟游诗人的元素，其中包括一个名叫“傻瓜”（Gumption Cute）的新角色——一个白人流氓，其快速的台词源自黑脸吟游诗人表演的传统。35以上段落是在托普西（Topsy）在一场文字游戏后占了上风之后创作的。一个狡猾的年轻女孩涂着黑脸为白人观众表演，在“可爱”一词仍与行为而非外表联系在一起的时代，她将聪明与可爱融为一体。

The playwright George Aiken’s stage version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin incorporated many elements from minstrelsy, including a new character called Gumption Cute – a white scallywag whose rapid-fire dialogue is drawn from the blackface minstrel-show tradition.35 The above passage comes after Topsy has got the upper hand in a bout of wordplay. A cunning young girl played in blackface for a white audience, she brought together the clever and the adorable at a time when the word ‘cute’ was still linked to behaviour rather than appearance.

作为吟游诗人独特形象的标志，36托普西 (Topsy) 这一角色激发了无数的模仿：在她之后出现了整个杂耍表演“挑选”。37黑人儿童的刻板“黑鬼”形象装饰着无数的消费品，从盐和胡椒瓶到餐馆菜单；只有当民权运动势头强劲时，它们才被打入阁楼和旧货店。

An icon of the distinctive image of minstrelsy,36 the character of Topsy inspired countless imitations: whole vaudeville acts of ‘picks’ appeared in her wake.37 Stereotypical ‘piccanniny’ images of Black children adorned countless consumer goods, from salt-and-pepper shakers to restaurant menus; only when the Civil Rights movement gained momentum were they consigned to attics and junk shops.

通过黑人吟游表演，十九世纪的大众文化121一直将非裔美国人描绘成滑稽、无能和孩子气的人物。38虽然黑脸吟游表演在二十世纪初的受欢迎程度有所下降，但它直接启发了包括米老鼠、秀兰·邓波儿、《绿野仙踪》中的稻草人和拉格迪·安妮娃娃在内的可爱偶像。39此外，黑人吟游表演的消亡恰逢动画的出现，在动画中，新的可爱角色可以被拉伸、变形和虐待，而这些在戏剧舞台上是不可能的。

Through minstrel shows, nineteenth-century mass culture 121persistently depicted African Americans as comical, inept and childlike.38 While its popularity flagged at the turn of the twentieth century, blackface minstrelsy directly inspired cute icons including Mickey Mouse, Shirley Temple, the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz and Raggedy Ann dolls.39 In addition, the demise of minstrelsy coincided with the arrival of animation, in which new, cute characters could be stretched, deformed and abused in a way that wasn’t possible on the theatre stage.

动画吟游诗人和狡猾的男孩

Animated minstrels and tricky boys

米老鼠、兔八哥、菲力猫和其他早期动画人物的设计明显受到了吟游表演传统的影响。40黑色的头部和身体、宽大的白边嘴巴、又大又圆的白眼睛，以及让这些人物的爪子看起来像人手的白色手套，都直接取材于吟游表演。41这种影响也延伸到了角色在银幕上的滑稽动作。动画人物展现出一种野性的聪明才智，吸引了大批观众，尤其是儿童，同时也让许多家长感到担忧。42

The designs of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Felix the Cat and other early animated characters were clearly influenced by the minstrel-show tradition.40 The black heads and bodies, wide white-rimmed mouths, large white round eyes and white gloves that made these characters’ paws resemble human hands were all drawn directly from minstrelsy.41 This influence extended to the characters’ onscreen antics, too. Animated characters exhibited a kind of feral cleverness that attracted large audiences, especially among children, while giving many parents cause for concern.42

早期的动画角色并非仅仅遵循吟游诗人的传统。闹剧喜剧早已存在。1900年，五岁的巴斯特·基顿以“不会受伤的小男孩”的身份首次亮相歌舞杂耍。作为家庭表演的一部分，他扮成了父亲乔的迷你版。小男孩捉弄了基顿老大，直到他失去耐心，基顿老大把小男孩扔到舞台侧幕、乐池甚至观众席。当小男孩用扫帚打父亲以示报复时，乔便将巴斯特变成了“人肉拖把”，用他擦拭舞台。43

Early animated characters were following more than just the minstrel tradition. Slapstick comedy had been around for a long time. In 1900 five-year-old Buster Keaton made his vaudeville debut as ‘The Little Boy Who Can’t Be Damaged’. Part of a family act, he appeared dressed as a miniature version of his father, Joe. The boy plays tricks on the elder Keaton until his patience snaps, causing him to toss the little boy into the wings, the orchestra pit or even the audience. When the boy gets revenge by hitting his father with a broom, Joe responds by using Buster as ‘The Human Mop’ and wiping the stage with him.43

基顿一家在美国非常受欢迎，尤其是在小学生中。122演出结束后，他们会蜂拥而至，涌上舞台，巴斯特会分发糖果。然而，当该剧团在伦敦巡演时，观众们惊讶地看到一个孩子被扔过舞台。44预订该剧的剧院经理阿尔弗雷德·巴特质问巴斯特是不是他们家的亲生儿子。“从你们把他扔来扔去的样子来看，”他说，“我以为他一定是领养的，你们根本不在乎他。” 45虽然巴斯特的父亲对此很不高兴，但基顿一家表演中的暴力元素表明，正在形成的美国式可爱审美融合了两种截然不同的儿童观：纯真的童年天真和早期将儿童视为需要驯服的动物的观点。

The Keaton family were incredibly popular in the US, especially with schoolchildren, who would flock onto the stage after 122the show, where Buster handed out sweets. Yet when the act toured in London, audiences were astonished to see a child flung across the stage.44 Alfred Butt, the theatre manager who had booked their show, demanded to know if Buster was the real son of the family. ‘Judging by the way you threw him around,’ he said, ‘I thought he must be adopted and that you didn’t give one damn about him.’45 While Buster’s father was not amused, the violence of the Keaton family act demonstrated how the developing American cute aesthetic melded two contrasting strands of thinking about the child: pure childhood innocence and the earlier view of children as animalistic creatures that needed to be tamed.

可爱的造型：New Kids 和丘比娃娃

The cute look: New Kids and Kewpie dolls

加里·克罗斯是最早研究美国文化中“可爱”兴起的学者之一。多亏了他，我才明白，只有当孩子们的天真与人们对他们顽皮活力的欣赏相结合时，“可爱”才会在流行文化中爆发。当成年人开始接受孩子们既淘气又乖巧的一面时，“可爱”一词就不再仅仅用来形容聪明了。正如加里所写，当孩子们任性甚至狡猾的行为在成年人眼中被他们的善良所救赎时，那些勉强被容忍的“机灵”孩子就变成了受欢迎的“可爱”孩子。46

Gary Cross is one of the first scholars to investigate the rise of cuteness in American culture. Thanks to him, I have come to understand that cuteness only exploded in popular culture when children’s innocence combined with an appreciation of their impish energy. When adults began to accept that children are both naughty and nice, the word ‘cute’ drifted away from describing mere cleverness. As Gary writes, the barely tolerated ‘acute’ child became the popular ‘cute’ child when wilful – and even devious – behaviour in children was redeemed in adult eyes by their goodness of heart.46

这一变化发生在孩子们的欲望越来越被视为自然的时代，父母被告知要纵容他们。孩子们任性的热情，即使会导致恶作剧，也正在成为值得珍惜而非惩罚的东西；淘气的角色代表着一种新的可爱形式。47

This change occurred at a time when children’s desires were increasingly seen as natural, and parents were being told to indulge them. Children’s headstrong enthusiasm, even if it led to mischief, was becoming something to be cherished rather than punished; mischievous characters represented a new form of cuteness.47

十九世纪末，此前在广告中使用成人形象的公司开始转向儿童形象。广泛的社会变革促成了这一转变。123从19世纪80年代起，婴儿死亡率迅速下降。童工率稳步下降，入学率上升。食品纯度丑闻，以及人们对营养重要性的认识日益加深，促使成年人开始关注儿童的健康和活力。随着消费的增长和女性在公共领域的影响力不断增强，企业开始营销更多面向儿童的产品，并在广告中使用更多儿童形象。48

In the late nineteenth century companies that had previously used images of adults in their advertising began switching to children. Broad social changes informed this shift. Infant 123mortality dropped rapidly from the 1880s. Child-labour rates fell steadily, and school attendance rose. Scandals about food purity, along with a growing awareness of the importance of nutrition, led adults to focus on the health and vitality of children. As consumption grew and women became more influential in the public sphere, companies began to market more child-oriented products and to use more children in advertisements.48

这些被统称为“新来的”的形象创造了一种童年理想，散发着年轻人的自信、主动性、个性、聪明和风趣。49他们有着圆圆的脸蛋、胖乎乎的脸颊和大大的眼睛，这些特征在洛伦兹的儿童属性图式中会激发人们对可爱的反应。新来的形象是白人孩子——红脸颊、活泼——比如 Uneeda 饼干女孩和金宝汤孩子，或者是“黑人小孩”角色，比如金粉双胞胎和梨子肥皂孩子。50后者的一个著名广告展示了一个黑人孩子在洗澡时皮肤变白。新来的形象反映了一种独特的美国式幸福——至少对于那些没有被种族主义刻板印象吓倒的人来说是这样。51

Known collectively as the New Kid, these images created a childhood ideal that exuded youthful confidence, initiative, personality, smartness and wit.49 They had round faces, chubby cheeks and wide eyes, features on Lorenz’s child schema of attributes that stimulate a cuteness response. New Kid images were of white children – red-cheeked and active – such as the Uneeda Biscuit girl and the Campbell Soup kid, or ‘piccaninny’ characters such as the Gold Dust Twins and the Pears Soap children.50 A well-known advert for the latter product shows a black child whose skin turns white in the bath. The New Kid image reflected a distinctly American representation of happiness – at least for those who were not put off by racist stereotypes.51

新来的孩子不仅仅出现在广告中。十九世纪末，半色调丝网印刷的发明提高了印刷杂志和广告的图像分辨率。出版业蓬勃发展，报纸要么吸引读者，要么消亡。1894年，《纽约世界报》推出的彩色周日漫画增刊大受欢迎，并迅速被模仿。当编辑和漫画家意识到他们的读者欣赏新漫画的视觉效果时，他们放弃了讽刺漫画和幽默写作；他们与其说是读者，不如说是观众。52

The New Kid didn’t just appear in advertising. As the nineteenth century ended, the invention of halftone screenprinting improved image resolution in print magazines and advertisements. The publishing industry boomed, and newspapers had to either attract readers or perish. The colour Sunday comic supplement, introduced in 1894 by the New York World, proved popular and was swiftly imitated. Editors and cartoonists dispensed with satirical cartoons and humorous writing when they realised that their customers appreciated the visual aspects of the new comics; they were not readers so much as spectators.52

周日增刊很快就开始聘用编辑，负责满足读者的需求。每一条建议都会被认真考虑，无论是来自编辑124团队、艺术家，还是读者的点子。如果销量上升，新的漫画就会一直连载，直到读者厌倦为止。另一方面，正如一位观察家在1905年指出的那样：“如果它们卖得不好，就会像烫手山芋一样被立刻扔掉。” 53

Sunday supplements soon began to employ an editor, who was charged with giving the public what they wanted. Every suggestion was considered, whether it came from the editorial 124team, the artists or was an idea sent in by a reader. If sales rose, the new comic would run until the public tired of it. On the other hand, as one observer noted in 1905, ‘If they fall flat, they are dropped at once, like a hot potato.’53

在这个充满实验热情的时期，漫画家们开始围绕一种新的视觉风格凝聚在一起。他们从“新来的孩子”形象中汲取灵感，青春气息开始占据主导地位。但漫画家和编辑们意识到，需要创造“习惯培养者”，鼓励读者每周日购买他们最爱漫画的最新一期。54因此，漫画越来越体现洛伦兹的儿童图式；可爱吸引读者，并让他们对反复出现的角色产生依恋，进而推动了报纸的销量。55第一个可爱的创新是赋予角色又大又圆的眼睛。

At this time of fervid experimentation, cartoonists began to cohere around a new visual style. They took cues from the New Kid image, and youthful features began to dominate. But cartoonists and editors were aware of the need to create ‘habit builders’ that would encourage readers to buy every Sunday paper with the latest instalment of their favourite strip.54 Accordingly, comics increasingly embodied Lorenz’s child schema; cuteness drew the reader in and created an attachment to recurring characters, which in turn drove newspaper sales.55 The first cute innovation was to give characters big, round eyes.

女童军是大腹便便、四肢修长的生物，大大的眼睛很容易让人流露出惊讶和喜悦的表情。它们出现在帕尔默·考克斯1879年在圣尼古拉斯首次亮相的一系列插图中，随后很快出现了玩偶、玩具和新奇物品。她们的形象通常基于种族刻板印象，从中国人、阿拉伯人到爱尔兰人，但她们通过分享冒险经历和行善而相处融洽。56从视觉上看，女童军代表了新可爱审美发展的一个过渡阶段。她们棍状的腿让人想起早期漫画中那些瘦骨嶙峋的人物，但她们也有一双碟状的大眼睛，头颅硕大。57 125

The Brownies were pot-bellied, long-limbed creatures with large eyes that easily conveyed expressions of surprise and delight. They appeared in a series of illustrations by Palmer Cox that made their debut in St Nicholas in 1879, and dolls, toys and novelty items soon followed. They were often based on ethnic stereotypes, from Chinese and Arab to Irish, but they got along by sharing adventures and doing good deeds.56 Visually, the Brownies represented a transitional stage in the development of the new cute aesthetic. Their stick-like legs recalled the emaciated figures that populated earlier comics, but they also had large, saucer-like eyes on oversized heads.57 125

图 6.1：1914 年的一张明信片上，丘比特正在为争取妇女选举权而奔走。

Fig. 6.1: A postcard from 1914 shows a Kewpie agitating for women’s suffrage.

当罗西·奥尼尔创作丘比特娃娃时，“新人”风格达到了顶峰。丘比特娃娃在米老鼠出现之前一直是世界上最知名的人物。丘比特娃娃在杂志上重新流行起来，成为装饰插图边缘的感伤浪漫的主题，但奥尼尔的设想却截然不同。58虽然丘比特娃娃长着小小的白色翅膀，但它们看起来更像真正的幼儿，有着大大的眼睛、纽扣般的鼻子和顽皮的魅力。59这些人物将康拉德·洛伦兹的儿童图式推向了极限。事实上，126洛伦兹本人也曾指出，如果在设计上再夸张一点，丘比特娃娃就会从讨人喜欢的可爱形象变成怪诞怪诞的怪诞形象。60

The New Kid style reached its apotheosis when Rosie O’Neill created the Kewpies, who became the world’s best-known characters until Mickey Mouse came along. Cupids were undergoing a revival in magazines as a sentimental and romantic motif adorning the edges of illustrations, but O’Neill envisioned something quite different.58 Though the Kewpies had tiny white wings, they looked more like real toddlers with big eyes, button noses and an impish charm.59 These characters pushed Konrad Lorenz’s child schema to its limits. In fact 126Lorenz himself remarked that a little more exaggeration in their design would tip the Kewpies from delightfully cute into eerily grotesque.60

丘比娃娃首次出现在1909年的《妇女家庭杂志》上。虽然在奥尼尔的短篇小说中，丘比娃娃被冠以男性代词，但61丘比娃娃却有着明确的女权主义价值观；她们怀着“一份爱”，帮助城市贫民窟中被忽视的儿童，对抗反对妇女参政论者，提出民权问题，并争取女性的选举权。62奥尼尔在《好管家》杂志上介绍丘比娃娃时写道：“丘比特总是让人陷入困境，而丘比娃娃总能帮他们摆脱困境。” 63

The Kewpies first appeared in 1909 in Ladies’ Home Journal. Although they were referred to with male pronouns,61 in O’Neill’s stories the Kewpies had explicitly feminist values; with ‘a dose of love’, they helped neglected children in urban slums, confronted anti-suffragists, raised civil-rights questions and demanded votes for women.62 When O’Neill introduced the Kewpies in Good Housekeeping magazine, she wrote: ‘Cupids are always getting people into trouble. Kewpies are always getting them out.’63

丘比娃娃作为卡通人物很受欢迎，但直到奥尼尔开始用无釉瓷器制作丘比娃娃时，它们才真正享誉全球。丘比娃娃于1913年问世，需要30家德国工厂才能满足需求，第一年就售出了500万个丘比娃娃。64这些娃娃在国际上颇具吸引力。日本的丘比蛋黄酱于1925年将丘比娃娃作为其品牌形象代言人，并一直沿用至今。

The Kewpies were popular as cartoon characters, but it was when O’Neill began producing Kewpie dolls from unglazed porcelain that they achieved worldwide fame. Upon their introduction in 1913 it took thirty German factories to keep up with the demand, and five million Kewpie dolls were sold in the first year.64 The dolls had international appeal. Kewpie Mayonnaise in Japan adopted the character as the face of its brand in 1925 and have kept it to this day.

作为书页上的人物，丘比娃娃是社会活动家，他们的身份认同源于他们与他人的关系。65然而，当它们变成立体娃娃时，它们便抛开了政治，转而传播爱，将其作为消除怨恨的灵丹妙药。第一次世界大战期间，美国对德国制造的产品实施封锁，但四艘满载丘比娃娃的船只却被允许通行。66我不确定它们为何能免受禁运，但这些娃娃是纯真可爱的象征，这一事实或许使得它们的制造国即使在战争时期也变得毫无意义。事实上，在战争期间，丘比娃娃穿着军装，甚至携带武器。然而，有人声称，这些娃娃并非相互争斗，而是在与战争本身作斗争。67 127

As characters on the page, the Kewpies were social activists whose identity emerged from their relationship to others.65 When they became three-dimensional dolls, however, they left politics behind and spread love as a generic antidote to ill feeling. During the First World War the US enforced a blockade against German-made products, but four ships full of Kewpie dolls were allowed to pass through.66 I’m not sure why they were exempted from the embargo, but the fact that the dolls were an icon of innocent cuteness might have rendered their country of manufacture moot, even in a time of war. In fact during the war Kewpie dolls were dressed in military uniforms and even carried weapons. It was asserted, however, that the dolls didn’t fight each other, but rather fought against the idea of war itself.67 127

图 6.2：1925 年的丘比蛋黄酱罐。

Fig. 6.2: Kewpie Mayonnaise jar from 1925.

尽管如此，丘比娃娃的造型通常都带有刻板的女性气质，带着羞涩的侧目。68随着“可爱”越来越普遍，它开始被性别化。男孩被认为拥有不羁的野性，这种野性被驯服后就变得可爱了。然而，当它与女孩联系在一起时，淘气就与风骚联系在一起了。

Despite this, Kewpie dolls were often posed in a stereotypically feminine way, with a bashful sideways gaze.68 As cuteness became increasingly widespread, it became gendered. Boys were seen as having an unruly wild side that became cute when it was domesticated. When it was associated with girls, however, mischievousness became associated with coquettishness.

此时，孩子们的顽皮行为被认为是自然而然的，但对女孩来说，这开始与调情联系在一起。“新来的孩子”形象的出现，引发了美国玩偶的剧烈变革。维多利亚时代的瓷娃娃高度程式化，嘴唇和眼睛都很小。相比之下，德国玩偶制造商则专注于制作更自然的造型和矛盾的表情。69但美国制造商开始制作具有幽默感的玩偶，与其说是甜美，不如说是俏皮。70 128

By this time, impish behaviour in children was regarded as natural, but for girls it began to be associated with flirtation. When the New Kid image arrived, it sparked a dramatic change in American dolls. Victorian china dolls had been highly stylised, with small lips and eyes. German doll-makers, by contrast, had specialised in more natural looks with ambivalent expressions.69 But American manufacturers began to make dolls with a sense of humour, more saucy than sweet.70 128

那些长相娇柔的女孩娃娃被赋予了诸如“淘气小姐”、“淘气玛丽埃塔”、“风骚小姐”和“弗洛西·弗利特”之类的名字。正如加里·克罗斯所写，这些娃娃“迎合了成年人对活泼、甚至略带操控欲和自我中心的孩子们的欣赏”。斜眼或左右转动的“咕咕”眼睛装在娃娃身上显得既有趣又迷人，因为孩子们被视为与成人的性欲无关。71

Girl dolls with a coquettish look were given names like Miss Mischief, Naughty Marietta, Miss Coquette and Flossie Flirt. As Gary Cross writes, these dolls ‘appealed to the adult’s admiration for the spunky, even slightly manipulative and self-centred child’. ‘Goo-goo’ eyes that looked askance or rolled from side to side appeared amusing and charming when attached to dolls, because children were seen as being apart from adult sexuality.71

到了十九世纪末，北美已基本摒弃了原罪教义。儿童被视为未受玷污，一种新的儿童性纯洁观念72在媒体对女孩的描述中尤为明显。“cute”（可爱）一词最早用来形容可爱的孩子出现在1909年，当时《哈泼周刊》刊登了一篇文章，其中写道：“我喜欢可爱的小女孩，她们会仰望你，牵着你的手，紧紧地依偎在你身边。” 73这是一个“爸爸的女儿”的时代，在有史以来最著名的童星秀兰·邓波儿的电影中尤为明显。

By the late nineteenth century North America had largely dispensed with the doctrine of original sin. Children were seen as uncorrupted, and a new conception of childhood sexual purity72 was especially apparent in the media representation of girls. An early use of the word ‘cute’ applied to adorable children appeared in 1909 when Harper’s Weekly published a story with the sentence ‘I like cute little girls that look up at you and take your hands and cuddle right up to you.’73 This was the era of the ‘Daddy’s girl’, particularly visible in the films of the most famous child star of all time: Shirley Temple.

可爱融化人心

Melting hearts through cuteness

秀兰·邓波儿六岁时就声名鹊起，并在 1935 年至 1938 年间成为全球最受欢迎的明星，这一时期的票房收入超过了凯瑟琳·赫本、玛琳·黛德丽和葛丽泰·嘉宝。74据《时代》杂志报道，1936 年她是世界上被拍照最多的人。75作为全球模范，秀兰在世界各地拥有 380 多个分支机构的粉丝俱乐部，会员人数达 380 万76 — 她标志性的风格影响了全世界的可爱风潮。

Shirley Temple rose to fame at the age of six and was the most popular star in the world between 1935 and 1938, with box-office returns during this period that trumped those of Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.74 According to Time magazine, she was the most photographed person in the world in 1936.75 A global role model, Shirley had fan clubs with more than 380 branches around the world with 3.8 million members76 – and her signature style influenced cuteness worldwide.

从内衣到外套，从香皂到书籍，秀兰·邓波儿的形象被印在任何能卖钱的东西上。1935年，秀兰·邓波儿娃娃几乎占了美国所有娃娃销量的三分之一。这些娃娃由理想新奇玩具公司（也是推出泰迪熊的那家公司）生产，即使是129最小的也要卖3美元——在大萧条时期，这可不便宜。19世纪50年代，P.T.巴纳姆的婴儿秀证明了儿童的娱乐价值；到了20世纪30年代，秀兰·邓波儿的受欢迎程度不仅鼓励父母们以她的形象重塑女儿，也影响了女孩们对自我的想象。77

From underwear to coats, soap to books, Shirley Temple’s image was plastered onto anything that would sell. In 1935 Shirley Temple dolls accounted for almost one-third of all doll sales in the US. Made by the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company (the same company that had launched the teddy bear), even 129the smallest of the dolls cost three dollars – not cheap in the midst of the Great Depression. In the 1850s P. T. Barnum’s baby shows had demonstrated that children had entertainment value; in the 1930s Shirley Temple’s popularity not only encouraged parents to recast their daughters in her image, but also influenced the way girls imagined themselves.77

雪莉著名的金色卷发使她成为主流白人美女的偶像，但她的形象却被二十世纪福克斯精心打造。她孩子般的五官包括宽阔的额头、小巧的鼻子和下巴、丰满的身材以及短小的手臂和腿，而工作室有意通过服装和摄影技术来凸显这些特征。她母亲每晚都会打理的金色卷发让她的头看起来更大。正面特写镜头让她的额头更宽，鼻子也更短。高于平均水平的合作演员更凸显了她的娇小身材，她的身高也一直被低估。她还通过减少银幕上生日蛋糕上的蜡烛数量来夸大她的青春。78

Shirley’s famous blonde ringlets helped make her an icon of mainstream white cuteness, but her image was carefully managed by Twentieth Century Fox. Her childlike features included a broad forehead, small nose and chin, plump body and short arms and legs, and the studio consciously accentuated them through costumes and camerawork. The blonde curls that her mother set every night made her head seem larger. Frontal close-ups broadened her forehead and foreshortened her nose. Taller-than-average co-stars accentuated her smallness, and her height was consistently under-reported. Her youth was exaggerated by reducing the number of candles on onscreen birthday cakes.78

雪莉的角色中充满了新人的调情——事实上，这些角色充满了性暗示。二十世纪福克斯的一位高管达里尔·扎努克命令道：“把她的裙子拉高。让合作演员尽可能地把她抬起来，以创造现在卖座的假象。保留童真。” 79小女孩内裤的标志性镜头似乎也是营销策略的一部分，除了她的纯真之外。事实上，她对年长男人的“诱惑”在今天看来是不合适的。在《可怜的小富家女》中，雪莉一边依偎在父亲的腿上爱抚着他，一边唱着她想嫁给他的愿望。在《明亮的眼睛》中，她在一架被男人们包围的飞机上唱着她的成名曲《好船棒棒糖》，他们把她举起来，递给另一个人。

Shirley’s characters included plenty of New Kid flirtation – in fact they are replete with sexual innuendo. Darryl Zanuck, a Twentieth Century Fox executive, ordered, ‘Keep her skirts high. Have co-stars lift her up whenever possible to create the illusion now selling so well. Preserve babyhood.’79 The signature shots of the little girl’s underpants seem to have been part of the marketing ploy, alongside her innocence. Indeed her ‘seduction’ of older men seems inappropriate today. In Poor Little Rich Girl, Shirley sings of her desire to marry her father, while cuddling in his lap and caressing him. In Bright Eyes she sings her famous song ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’ in a plane surrounded by men who lift her up and pass her from one to another.

秀兰·邓波儿的电影通常以她孤儿的身份开场，以她在新家庭中获得接纳而结束。但秀兰饰演的角色并非只是无助、女性化的130“爸爸的女儿”。她也是一位假小子，展现出勇气和胆量来解决纠纷，弥合成年人之间的裂痕。80

A Shirley Temple film would often begin with her as an orphan and end with her finding acceptance within a new family. But Shirley’s characters are not just helpless, feminine 130Daddy’s girls. She was also a tomboy who displayed pluck and courage to resolve disputes and heal rifts between adults.80

作为一名女英雄，雪莉展现了通常与男孩联系在一起的淘气一面。在《卷发顶》中，她带着宠物鸭和马进入孤儿院，在《阳光小溪农场的丽贝卡》中违抗姑妈的命令参加广播节目，在《小小反叛者》中向北方军官射弹弓。她有自己独特的可爱风格，既轻浮又淘气，融合了天真的魅力和顽皮的狡猾。雪莉在银幕上的形象通过外表和行动将人们联系在一起，成为可爱的积极推动者。她提出了一种社会界限可以渗透的愿景，尽管是通过掩盖现实社会问题的虚假叙事的多愁善感。

As a girl hero, Shirley shows a mischievous side that was usually associated with boys. She brings her pet duck and horse into the orphanage in Curly Top, performs a radio show against her aunt’s orders in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and fires a slingshot at a Yankee officer in The Littlest Rebel. She had her own signature form of cuteness that was both flirtatious and naughty, a blend of innocent charm and impish cunning. Shirley’s onscreen persona deployed looks and actions to bring people together as an active agent of cuteness. She offered a vision of social boundaries made permeable, albeit through the sentimentality of false narratives that papered over real social problems.

雪莉在媒体上的声望与她的年轻息息相关。她不仅要像个孩子一样行事，更要活出童真。二十世纪福克斯公司要求她的母亲向女儿隐瞒她名气的真正程度，以确保她在荧幕上的形象保持纯真。81这种担忧暴露了她对事业的焦虑：小女孩终究会长大。媒体对雪莉生日派对的报道几乎是倒计时——每年他们都在猜测她何时会失去人气。82 1937年，《波士顿环球报》大肆宣扬：“好莱坞在问：雪莉·邓波儿还能当多久的明星？” 83此时，这位童星刚刚庆祝了她的八岁生日。

Shirley’s prominence in the media was tied to her youth. She not only had to act like a child – she had to be a child. Twentieth Century Fox ordered her mother to hide the true extent of her fame from her daughter, so that her onscreen presence would remain innocent.81 This concern revealed an anxiety surrounding her career; the little girl would invariably grow up. The media coverage of Shirley’s birthday parties was practically a countdown – every year they speculated on when she would lose her popularity.82 ‘Hollywood Is Asking: How Long Will Shirley Temple Remain a Star?’ trumpeted the Boston Globe in 1937.83 At this point, the child actor had recently celebrated her eighth birthday.

可爱文化在二十世纪兴起，其动力源于人们对童真特质的欣赏，这种特质体现在报纸漫画、广告和电影演员等方方面面。在电影演员中，这种欣赏伴随着一种意识，即这些魅力很快就会消逝。日本长期以来在其艺术和文学中推崇短暂易逝的特质，而欧洲则更青睐持久永恒的特质。当美国文化转向可爱时，131它或许受到了日本艺术和设计中传承数百年的价值观的影响。

When cute culture took off in the twentieth century, it was fuelled by an appreciation of childlike characteristics that appeared in everything from newspaper comics and advertising to movie actors. In the last-named, this appreciation was accompanied by an awareness that these charms would soon fade. Japan had long valued the ephemeral and perishable in its art and literature, while Europe had preferred the lasting and permanent. When American culture pivoted towards the cute, 131it may have been influenced by the centuries-old values that infused Japanese art and design.

虽然可爱有时感觉像是现代的发明，但如果它的根源在于我们的生理机能，那么它一定一直伴随着我们。不久前，我组织了一场“可爱研究”会议，并在演讲中展示了我最喜欢的日本雕塑之一。这尊800年前的木刻小狗雕像，是佛教僧侣明惠（1173-1232）的心头好，他还收藏了《百兽图》。这尊小狗坐着，但背部的曲线让它看起来仿佛即将跃起玩耍。对我来说，这尊雕像捕捉到了小狗嬉闹的精髓。

While cuteness might sometimes feel like a modern invention, if its roots are in our biology, then it must always have been with us. A while ago I organised a Cute Studies conference panel and included an image of one of my favourite Japanese sculptures in my presentation. An 800-year-old wooden statue of a puppy, it was a favourite possession of the Buddhist monk Myōe (1173–1232), who also acquired the Scroll of Frolicking Animals. The puppy is sitting, but the curve of its back makes it look as if it’s about to leap up and start playing. To me, this statue captures the essence of puppy playfulness.

我的姑姑和姑父在7000英里外的佛蒙特州通过Zoom观看我的演讲。当那只木制小狗出现在他们的电脑屏幕上时，他们的狗戴尔跳了起来，开始吠叫。当我展示小狗脸部的特写镜头时，它又叫了起来。八个世纪的鸿沟瞬间崩塌。就像一场时空旅行。

My aunt and uncle were watching my presentation over Zoom, 7,000 miles away in Vermont. When the wooden puppy appeared on their computer screen, their dog Dell leapt up and began to bark. When I showed a close-up of the puppy’s face, he barked again. The gulf of eight centuries had collapsed in an instant. It was like time-travel.

戴尔经常在电视上看到别的狗就会叫，但这还是他第一次对着狗雕像叫。更神奇的是，他竟然最后爬到了我姑姑的腿上。狼是怎么变成狗的？更重要的是，可爱在多大程度上影响了驯化过程？

Dell often barks when he sees another dog on TV, but this was the first time he’d done it when faced with a dog statue. Yet a bigger miracle is the way he ended up on my aunt’s lap in the first place. How did wolves become dogs? And, more to the point, to what extent did cuteness influence the domestication process?

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7

7

可爱的进化基础

The Evolutionary Substrate of Cuteness

科学已经解答了许多关于我们进化史的问题。例如，我们现在知道许多人携带少量尼安德特人的DNA，这表明我们能够与他们杂交——就像今天的狼和狗一样。然而，要弄清楚数千年前人类的行为方式，需要科学与推测的巧妙结合。狗的驯化起源是一个备受科学争议的话题，就是一个很好的例子。

Science has answered many questions about our evolutionary past. For instance, we now know that many people have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, which demonstrates that we were able to interbreed with them – just as wolves and dogs can today. However, figuring out how people behaved many thousands of years ago can require a judicious mix of science and speculation. The origins of dog domestication, a subject of much scientific debate, are a prime example.

正如我们之前所见，家养动物即使在成年后也会变得更加平静，喜欢玩耍。它们的脸会变宽，下颌变短，牙齿变小，身体和四肢变得越来越短，耳朵会变得松软，身上可能会出现白色的斑块。此外，家养动物133即使在成年后也能与其他物种建立关系。然而，对我们大多数人来说，科学家所说的幼态持续只是一种可爱的表现。

As we saw earlier, domesticated animals become calmer and enjoy playing even as they mature. Their faces widen, their jaws shorten and their teeth get smaller, their bodies and limbs become smaller and shorter, and floppy ears and white patches of fur may appear. Furthermore, domesticated animals 133can forge relationships with members of other species, even as adults. Yet to most of us, what scientists call neoteny is simply cute.

我们还发现，神经嵴细胞可能是驯化的一个因素。某些物种的友好个体似乎拥有一些基因，能够减缓神经嵴细胞向身体其他部位的迁移，从而形成幼态持续的外观和行为。

We’ve also seen that cells in the neural crest may be a factor in domestication. Friendly individuals of some species seem to possess genes that cause a slower migration of neural-crest cells to other areas of the body, which results in a neotenous appearance and behaviour.

六十年前，德米特里·别利亚耶夫只是简单地选择了最友善的狐狸在西伯利亚繁殖，但究竟是什么引发了数千年前的驯化过程，这个问题依然存在。有些物种可能是偶然进入了特定的生态位而变得温顺的。当鸟类抵达新西兰——这片没有捕食者的土地——时，它们变得平静、无所畏惧，有些甚至失去了翅膀。在世界其他地方，或许正是人类对温顺友善动物的偏好，才使得驯化通过选择性育种得以实现。

Dmitri Belyaev simply chose the friendliest foxes to breed in Siberia sixty years ago, but the question of what triggered the domestication process thousands of years back remains. Some species may have become tame by stumbling into a specific ecological niche. When birds arrived in New Zealand – a land without predators – they became calm, fearless, and some of them even lost their wings. In other parts of the world it might have been the human preference for tame, friendly animals that enabled domestication to occur through selective breeding.

在本章中，我们将首先探讨为什么某些物种易于驯服，而另一些则不可驯服。然后，我们将重点讨论最早被驯化的动物—​​—狗，以及可爱可能是其进化路径中的一个因素。最后，我们将探索许多科学家认为凶猛的狼变成可爱狗背后的认知框架。

In this chapter we’ll first look at why certain species are tameable while others aren’t. Then we’ll focus on the first domesticated animal, the dog, and the possibility that cuteness may have been a factor in its evolutionary path. Finally we’ll explore the cognitive framework that many scientists believe is behind the transformation of fierce wolves into lovable dogs.

被鹅追赶的人：印记和社会化时期

The man followed by geese: imprinting and the socialisation period

康拉德·洛伦兹或许用他的儿童图式将“可爱”一词条条框框化，但他真正获得诺贝尔奖的，是他对动物社会印记机制（一种促使幼年动物与同类建立联系的本能）的研究。洛伦兹认为，小鹅并非生来就拥有母亲的形象，而是本能地追随它们看到的第一个移动物体。他称之为“本能134释放机制”，因为这种本能会释放出某种行为。

Konrad Lorenz may have codified cuteness with his child schema, but it was his investigation of the social imprinting mechanism in animals – the instinct that causes baby animals to bond with their own species – that won him a Nobel Prize. Instead of being born with an image of their mother in their heads, Lorenz believed that baby geese instinctively followed the first moving object they saw. He called this an ‘instinctual 134releasing mechanism’ because the instinct released a certain behaviour.

为了验证自己的理论，洛伦兹亲手抚养了一些小鹅，确保它们孵化后第一个见到的就是洛伦兹。从那时起，小鹅们就不再理会它们的母亲，而是忠实地跟随洛伦兹。这位杰出的科学家带着他的小鹅在田野里散步或在湖里游泳的照片出现在许多生物学教科书中。

To test his theory, Lorenz hand-raised some goslings, ensuring that he was the first thing they saw upon hatching. From then on, the goslings paid no attention to their mother and faithfully followed Lorenz around. Pictures of the eminent scientist walking in a field or swimming in a lake accompanied by his gosling brood appeared in many biology textbooks.

洛伦兹的雏鹅和所有鹅一样，都已经被驯化。但许多幼年动物，无论驯养还是野生，都会经历一段敏感期，在此期间，它们会无畏地探索周围环境，并建立持久的联系。这段社会化窗口期从幼年动物睁开眼睛时就开始了，而当它们开始害怕未知时，窗口期就会关闭。

Lorenz’s goslings, like all geese, were already domesticated. But many baby animals, both tame and wild, experience a sensitive period in which they fearlessly explore their environment and can form lasting bonds. This socialisation window begins as soon as baby animals open their eyes and closes when they start to fear the unknown.

驯化会延长这一时期；驯服的西伯利亚狐的社会化期延长至四个月（而不是四十五天），并且恐惧反应延迟。1为了验证这一点，俄罗斯科学家测量了驯服幼崽的压力激素水平，以观察其是否较低。虽然所有狐狸的压力激素水平在社会化窗口关闭后均有所上升，但特别驯服的幼崽的压力激素峰值出现得更晚，幅度也更低：比对照组的狐狸低了足足50% 。2

Domestication lengthens this period; the tame Siberian foxes show an expanded socialisation period of four months (rather than forty-five days) and a delayed fear response.1 To test this, the Russian scientists measured stress hormones to see if the tame pups had lower levels. Although the levels in all foxes rose as the socialisation window closed, the especially tame animals experienced a much later and lower spike: a full 50 per cent lower than the control foxes.2

人们通常认为，新生儿需要持续的关爱，这促使我们认为他们很可爱。然而，研究表明，无论是人类还是动物，当婴儿足够成熟，能够探索并与他人建立联系时，我们才会觉得他们最可爱。3任何养过小狗、小猫或小孩的人都熟悉他们睁大眼睛、充满好奇、一头扎进爱河的模样，我们一会儿为他们可爱而欣喜，一会儿又为他们的生命担忧。幼小的生物在此期间发展的社会联系和认知技能有助于他们日后的生存能力；换句话说，可爱有助于婴儿融入家庭。135

It’s often assumed that newborn babies’ need for constant care is what triggers us to think they’re cute. However, studies show that we regard a baby, whether human or animal, as most adorable when it has matured enough to explore and form connections with others.3 Anyone who has raised a puppy, kitten or child is familiar with the wide-eyed wonder and headlong abandon that has us fawning over their cuteness one moment and fearing for their lives the next. The social connections and cognitive skills that young creatures develop during this period contribute to their later ability to survive; in other words, cuteness helps babies join the family. 135

爱情基因使狗与我们建立联系

Genes for love cause dogs to bond with us

在任何其他驯化物种出现之前，狗就已经作为我们的狩猎伙伴、哨兵和雪橇拉手。但它们是我们的朋友吗？还是说，这要等到很久以后，在我们让它们投入工作之后才出现？

Before any other domesticated species existed, we had dogs as hunting partners, sentries and sled-pullers. But were they our friends? Or did that come much later, after we had put them to work?

犬类行为学家克莱夫·韦恩（Clive Wynne）用一个数据驱动型科学家很少使用的词来回答是什么导致狗与我们建立联系的问题。他写道：“狗的本质是爱。” 4韦恩将狗的爱定义为一种极端的超社会性，这种行为在人类身上被认为是不正常的。5他指出，与人互动会激活狗大脑的奖励中心，就像食物一样。6然而，虽然狗的大脑继承了为与人类建立关系做好准备的结构，但它们仍然需要与人接触才能巩固爱的持久联系。7这样，它们对人的爱既是遗传的，也是后天获得的。

Canine behaviourist Clive Wynne answers the question of what causes dogs to bond with us with a word seldom used by data-driven scientists. ‘The essence of dog is love,’ he writes.4 Wynne defines canine love as an extreme hyper-sociality that would be considered abnormal in a human.5 He points out that interacting with people activates the reward centres of a dog’s brain, just as food does.6 However, while dogs inherit structures in their brains that prepare them for relationships with humans, they still require exposure to people to cement a loving and lasting bond.7 In this way their love for people is both inherited and acquired.

一组研究人员向受试者展示了不同年龄段狗狗的照片，他们认为八周大的幼犬最可爱，而这正是它们的母亲把它们赶出窝的年龄。研究人员认为，幼犬越可爱，就越有可能被人类收养，从而将基因遗传给下一代。8爱或许是狗狗的天性，但要充分展现这种特质，也需要人类的悉心照料。

When a team of researchers presented people with pictures of dogs at various ages, they judged puppies to be cutest at eight weeks old, exactly the age when their mothers are kicking them out of the den. The cuter the puppy, these researchers believe, the more likely it is to be adopted by humans and thus able to pass on genes to the next generation.8 It may be the nature of dogs to love, but the full expression of this quality also requires human nurture.

当我在圣地亚哥遇到新几内亚唱犬时，它们见到新人类时兴奋得几乎要摔倒了。9相比之下，西伯利亚狐狸则显得有些矜持。唱犬充满爱，因为JAB犬科动物教育与保护中心的艾米和戴夫·巴塞特从小就把它们养大。据韦恩所说，社会化时期的印记是“爱的基因……与真正爱人的狗之间缺失的关键环节”。10如果我们能够利用这些“爱的基因”，或许就能让任何动物都变得同样驯服136可爱。想象一下，一只温顺的熊在早上帮你叼拖鞋，或者一只友善的狮子让你的孩子骑在它的背上。

When I met the New Guinea singing dogs in San Diego, they all but fell over themselves in excitement at meeting a new human.9 The Siberian foxes, in contrast, possessed a certain reserve. The singing dogs were full of love because Amy and Dave Bassett at the JAB Canid Education and Conservation Center had raised them from puppyhood. According to Wynne, imprinting during the socialisation period is ‘the crucial missing link between genes for love … and a dog that actually loves people’.10 If we could tap into these ‘genes for love’, perhaps we could make any animal just as domesticated 136and lovable. Imagine a tame bear fetching your slippers in the morning, or a friendly lion giving your child a ride on its back.

如果我可以选择驯服任何动物，我会选斑马。你可能会觉得驯服它们并不难。毕竟，它们和马的亲缘关系如此密切，以至于它们可以交配——即使它们产生的后代——斑马——不育且不太温顺。如果我们找到几只温顺的斑马，让它们一起繁殖，并重复这个过程，我们最终肯定会得到像我们爱它们一样爱我们的斑马吧？毕竟，这种驯服的选择在西伯利亚狐狸实验中就奏效了。

If I could choose any animal to tame, I’d pick the zebra. You’d think that taming them wouldn’t be that difficult. After all, they’re so closely related to horses that the two can mate – even if the offspring that result, zebroids, are sterile and not especially docile. If we found a few calm zebras, bred them together and repeated the process, surely we’d end up with zebras that love us as much as we love them? After all, such selection for tameness worked in the Siberian-fox experiment.

可惜的是，这种技术似乎并不适用于所有动物。17世纪定居南非的欧洲养马者，几个世纪以来一直试图驯服斑马，但都以失败告终。马匹对欧洲殖民主义至关重要，但许多马匹在非洲死于斑马自身免疫的疾病。那么，为什么所有斑马后代都像它们的条纹祖先一样野性十足呢？作者贾雷德·戴蒙德给出了两个原因。首先，斑马极具攻击性——你可能会惊讶地发现，它们伤害的动物园管理员比老虎还多。其次，斑马广阔的周边视野和甩头反射使它们擅长逃脱驯服的尝试。例如，它们根本无法用绳子套住。11

Unfortunately this technique doesn’t seem to work with all animals. European horse-breeders, having settled in South Africa in the seventeenth century, tried unsuccessfully to tame zebras for several centuries. Horses were crucial to European colonialism, but many perished in Africa from diseases to which zebras were immune. So why do all zebra offspring remain as wild as their striped forebears? The author Jared Diamond offers two reasons. First, zebras are highly aggressive – you might be surprised to learn that they injure more zookeepers than tigers do. Second, the wide peripheral vision and head-flick reflex of zebras make them good at escaping attempts to tame them. For example, they are impossible to lasso with a rope.11

这或许能解释为什么地球上 148 种大型哺乳动物中只有 14 种被驯化——如果算上新驯服的西伯利亚狐，则有 15 种。12这并不是因为缺乏尝试；似乎有些物种已经进化出顽强的特性，阻碍了驯化。

This may offer a clue as to why only fourteen of the 148 large mammal species on Earth have been domesticated – fifteen if we include the newly tame Siberian foxes.12 It’s not from lack of trying; it seems that robust traits have evolved in some species that stand in the way of domestication.

人类之所以有驯服斑马的想法，是因为其他动物已经被驯服了。那么，在缺乏先例可循的时代，史前人类是如何决定驯服狼的呢？查尔斯·达尔文在家养动物方面最伟大的发现是“无意识选择”，这与他137在自然界观察到的现象如出一辙。他认为，人类会选择那些能给人类带来某种价值或优势的动物作为伴侣，而从未想过要对整个品种进行改良。13换句话说，达尔文认为某些狼对史前人类一定有着特殊的吸引力——但我们很难理解，在身边饲养一只凶猛的狼究竟有什么吸引力。

People only had the idea of trying to tame zebras because other animals were already domesticated, so how did prehistoric people decide to domesticate wolves at a time when there were no previous models to guide them? Charles Darwin’s greatest discovery involving domesticated animals was ‘unconscious selection’, which mirrored what he had observed 137in nature. Humans, he suggested, selected individual animals to keep nearby that provided them with some value or advantage, without any thought of improving the breed overall.13 In other words, Darwin believed that certain wolves must have had a special appeal to prehistoric humans – but it’s hard for us to see the attraction in keeping a ferocious wolf nearby.

达尔文的无意识选择理论只对某些物种有效，狗就是最好的例子。然而，狼既好斗又害羞——这些特质甚至可以超越人工选择——那么它们是如何变成狗的呢？

Darwin’s unconscious selection only worked on certain species, with dogs being the prime example. However, wolves are both aggressive and shy – qualities that can even override artificial selection – so how did they turn into dogs?

狗的狼祖先源自伊特鲁里亚狼（Canis etruscus），这是一种食肉动物，出现于170万至190万年前的冰河时代，并遍布欧洲、非洲和亚洲，然后跨越陆桥进入北美洲——这一爆炸性扩张被称为狼事件。14

The dog’s wolf ancestor derived from the Etruscan wolf (Canis etruscus), a carnivore that appeared 1.7–1.9 million years ago during the Ice Age and spread across Europe, Africa and Asia before crossing the land bridge into North America – an explosive expansion known as the Wolf Event.14

当时，智人刚刚开始离开非洲。我们自己的人口扩张到全球各个角落直到后来才发生，但经过15000年，我们几乎将所有大型食肉动物逼到了灭绝的边缘——当然，狼除外。15

Homo sapiens was just starting to leave Africa at that time. Our own population expansion to all corners of the globe didn’t occur until later, but 15,000 years into it we had driven virtually every large carnivore to the brink of extinction – except, that is, for wolves.15

事实上，狼对早期人类来说是一场激烈的竞争——自然选择反而会进一步拉大我们之间的距离。马、猪和牛的野生祖先或许胆小且好斗，但它们都不是肉食性动物。狼难道不是最不可能被成功驯化的候选者吗？

In fact wolves represented significant competition to early humans – and natural selection would have pushed us further apart. The wild ancestors of horses, pigs and cattle may have been shy and aggressive, but none of them were carnivorous predators. Surely wolves were the least likely candidates for successful domestication?

然而，我们应该记住，圈养的野生动物个体能够逐渐适应人类，就像藏王狐狸村那只平静却无动于衷的狐狸一样，它坐在我腿上。马戏团里的狮子和老虎等动物也是野生动物的例子，它们不仅被训练得能容忍我们，还能听从人类的指令。关键在于从小就开始饲养这些动物。如果它们想接受人类为朋友，就必须处于康拉德·洛伦兹所说的“社会化窗口”之内。138

However, we should remember that individual wild animals raised in captivity can become habituated to humans, exactly like the calm but disinterested fox that sat on my lap at Zaō Fox Village. Circus animals like lions and tigers are other examples of wild animals that are trained not merely to tolerate us, but to do the bidding of humans. The key is to raise the animals when they are very young. They must be within Konrad Lorenz’s socialisation window if they are to accept people as friends. 138

但野生动物永远无法真正驯服；它们凶猛的天性可能会突然爆发，造成悲剧性的后果。魔术师齐格弗里德和罗伊曾用一只名叫“曼塔科尔”的人工饲养白虎表演魔术，直到2003年，这只白虎在惊恐的观众面前突然袭击罗伊，使他重伤。经过训练的野生动物的后代永远是野性的——每一代都必须经过人工饲养才能适应人类，即使如此，它们的行为仍然难以预测。而家养动物从出生起就比野生动物更加温顺。驯服是它们基因的一部分。

But wild animals can never become truly tame; their fierce nature can suddenly assert itself, with tragic results. The magicians Siegfried and Roy performed with a hand-raised white tiger named Mantacore until he suddenly attacked Roy in front of a horrified audience in 2003, leaving him seriously injured. The offspring of trained wild animals are always wild – each generation must be hand-raised if they are to tolerate people, and they remain unpredictable even then. Domesticated animals, on the other hand, are calmer than their wild counterparts from birth. Tameness is part of their genetic heritage.

解开动物如何从野生过渡到驯服的谜团，对于发现我们毛茸茸伙伴身上“可爱”的重要性至关重要。在某个时期，狼崽长大后不再变得凶猛、多疑和狂野，而是保持友好、好玩和相对温顺的性格。当这些因素作为遗传特征融入它们的基因组时，狼就变成了狗。达尔文的无意识选择概念并没有描述这一过程，但目前出现了两种可能的理论：宠物收养理论和垃圾场理论。

Solving the mystery of how animals transition from wild to tame is crucial to discovering the importance of cuteness in our furry companions. At some point wolf pups stopped turning fierce, suspicious and wild as they grew up, remaining friendly, playful and relatively docile. When these factors became built into their genome as inherited traits, wolves became dogs. Darwin’s concept of unconscious selection doesn’t describe how this happened, but two possible theories have arisen: the pet-adoption theory and the rubbish-dump theory.

宠物收养理论

The pet-adoption theory

其中一个可能解释我们的犬类伙伴如何变得友善的理论是“宠物领养”理论。根据这一长期以来被广泛接受的假说，大约在1.5万到4万年前，人类开始把狼崽带回家。他们养育幼崽，与它们玩耍，最终共同培育出最友善的宠物。随着时间的推移，他们创造了狗——世界上第一种被驯化的动物。

One of the competing ideas that might explain how our canine companions became friendly is the ‘pet adoption’ theory. According to this hypothesis, long the accepted view, somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago people began bringing wolf puppies home with them. They raised them, played with them and eventually bred the friendliest of their pets together. Over time they created the dog, the world’s first domesticated animal.

为了让狼适应人类，需要在幼崽闭眼时将它们与母亲分开。这是因为社会化窗口期——幼崽接受陌生人的时期——仅在139其出生后的最初几周开放。然而，抚养狼幼崽是一项艰巨的任务。例如，史前人类如何喂养那些还未到可以吃固体食物的年龄的狼幼崽？一些科学家认为，它们一定是由收养它们的人进行母乳喂养的。

Making wolves accustomed to humans requires the pups to be separated from their mothers when their eyes are still closed. This is because the socialisation window – the period in which puppies will accept strangers – is only open for the first few 139weeks of their lives. But raising wolf puppies is a demanding task. For example, how could prehistoric people have fed wolf pups that were not old enough to eat solid food? Some scientists have suggested that they must have been breastfed by the people who adopted them.

进化生物学家凯瑟琳·洛德对此持不同意见。“我觉得这个想法太可怕了，”她说。“狼的牙齿非常锋利，如果奶水不足，就会开始拼命咬人。” 16作为研究狗和狼如何发育的一部分，洛德亲手饲养了40多只狼崽，使它们进行社会化——而且，由于她睡在狼崽旁边，每次它们饿了，她都必须保持警惕。洛德描绘的画面如此生动，以至于我惊讶地发现，女性曾经母乳喂养过狼崽的想法在生物学家中得到了广泛支持。事实证明，狼崽的喂养方式是解答它们如何变成狗这个有争议的问题的关键部分。

The evolutionary biologist Kathryn Lord begs to differ. ‘It’s a horrific idea to me,’ she says. ‘Wolves have extremely sharp teeth and when they don’t get enough milk, they start biting really hard.’16 As part of her research into how dogs and wolves develop, Lord has hand-raised more than forty wolf pups by hand to socialise them – and, sleeping next to her charges, she had to be vigilant every time they became hungry. Lord paints such a vivid picture that I was surprised to find that the idea that women once breastfed wolf puppies has significant support among biologists. It turns out that the way wolf pups were fed is a crucial part of the answer to the contentious question of how they turned into dogs.

当我第一次接触宠物收养理论时，我以为人们收养小狼崽是因为它们可爱得令人无法抗拒。因此，当我发现一些科学家推测可爱是最有可能的解释时，我感到很欣慰。17由此可见，对可爱的渴望驱使人们饲养狗这种终生可爱的动物。

When I first encountered the pet-adoption theory, I assumed that people had brought wolf puppies into their care because they were irresistibly cute, so I was delighted to discover that some scientists speculate that cuteness was the most likely explanation.17 It follows that the desire for adorability drove people to breed dogs, creatures that are cute for their entire lives.

尽管洛德关于狼幼崽无法母乳喂养的观察似乎打消了这种想法，但许多科学家仍然支持宠物收养理论。在我们讨论狼驯化的第二种理论之前，让我们先更深入地探讨一下宠物饲养假说，同时记住狼幼崽锋利的牙齿。

Although Lord’s observation about the impossibility of breastfeeding wolf pups seems to put this idea to rest, many scientists continue to support the pet-adoption theory. Before we get to the second theory of wolf domestication, let’s look more closely at the pet-keeping hypothesis, while keeping those sharp wolf puppy teeth in mind.

第一个提出动物驯化始于宠物收养的人是弗朗西斯·高尔顿，他是查尔斯·达尔文的同父异母表兄，他对世界各地将野生动物作为宠物饲养的土著居民十分着迷。140他在1865年写道：“所有旅行者都知道一个事实，那就是野蛮人经常捕捉各种幼小的动物，把它们当作宠儿饲养，然后作为珍品出售或赠送。”他认为，驯服可爱幼崽的愿望是人类天性的普遍特征，这也解释了动物最初是如何被驯化的。在阐述他的观点时，他指出驯服是驯养的首要选择标准。

The first person to suggest that animal domestication began with pet adoption was Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin,18 who was fascinated by indigenous people all over the world who kept wild animals as pets. ‘It is a fact familiar to 140all travellers,’ he wrote in 1865, ‘that savages frequently capture young animals of various kinds, and rear them as favourites, and sell or present them as curiosities.’19 He suggested that the desire to tame cute baby animals is a universal aspect of human nature,20 which explained how animals were originally domesticated. In making his case, he pointed to tameness as the top selection criteria for domestication.21

这种设想或许可以解释我们渴望身边有可爱伙伴的起源。其理论认为，史前人类偶然发现了一只死去或濒死的母狼，并被她可爱的幼崽深深吸引，于是把它们带回家与自己一起生活。支持宠物领养理论的科学家指出，许多原住民社会会收养各种各样的野生动物幼崽作为村落宠物，通常是因为它们很可爱。世界各地的村庄都从野外引进松鼠、猴子、水獭、浣熊、巨嘴鸟、鹦鹉、负鼠，甚至熊崽，并在这些地方长大。许多早期人类学家的报告都指出，各种村落宠物都是由女性母乳喂养的，但这些报告通常只是传闻，而非有据可查的记录。22

This scenario would explain the origin of our desire to surround ourselves with cute companions. The idea was that prehistoric people stumbled on a dead or dying mother wolf and were so struck by her cute pups that they brought them home to live with them. Scientists who support the pet-adoption theory point out that many aboriginal societies adopted various kinds of baby wild animals as village pets, often because they were cute. Squirrels, monkeys, otters, racoons, toucans, parrots, opossums and even bear cubs were brought in from the wild and raised in villages all over the world. There are many reports from early anthropologists that various village pets were breastfed by women, but these are most often anecdotal tales rather than documented accounts.22

我很惊讶地发现了太平洋岛屿民族中妇女哺乳小猪的照片证据。23然而，正如凯瑟琳·洛德指出的那样，小猪和狼崽之间存在很大差异，在我们寻找解释狗的发育过程的过程中，狼崽锋利的牙齿仍然是宠物收养理论的障碍。

I was surprised to find photographic evidence of women breastfeeding piglets among the island peoples of the Pacific.23 However, as Kathryn Lord points out, there’s a big difference between piglets and wolf puppies, whose sharp teeth remain a barrier to the pet-adoption theory in our search to explain the development of the dog.

垃圾场理论

The rubbish-dump theory

第二种狼驯化理论是由康拉德·洛伦兹本人提出的。1953年，他出版了一本名为《人与狗的相遇》的书，书中首先描绘了一个史前场景。洛伦兹写道，大约5万年前，游牧的狩猎采集者群体在狩猎方面取得了巨大的成功，以至于141食腐动物开始跟随他们，希望能得到剩下的食物。随着时间的推移，狩猎采集者注意到这些动物有一些实用的功能，比如每当它们嗅到附近的捕食者时就会嚎叫和吠叫。最终，这些动物中最温顺、最聪明的开始跟随狩猎队伍，并从中分得一杯羹。就这样，狗诞生了。24

The second theory of wolf domestication was proposed by Konrad Lorenz himself. In 1953 he published a book called Man Meets Dog, which begins by imagining a prehistoric scene. Some 50,000 years ago, Lorenz writes, bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers attained such success with hunting that 141scavengers began to follow them around, hoping for leftovers. Over time the hunter-gatherers noticed that these animals had useful functions, such as howling and barking whenever they smelled a nearby predator. Eventually the tamest and cleverest of these animals started accompanying hunting expeditions and earned a share of the spoils. In this way, the dog was born.24

洛伦兹的寓言被称为清道夫理论或垃圾场理论，但科学家们花了半个世纪的时间才认真对待这个想法。21 世纪初，雷和洛娜·科平格以生活在垃圾堆里的狗为例，进一步阐述了这一理论。25据估计，全世界有 10 亿只狗，其中大多数是散养的“村狗”，不属于任何人， 26主要靠吃垃圾和人类粪便为生。科平格夫妇提出，以人类垃圾为食为野生动物提供了一个作为清道夫开辟出一片天地的机会。在这样的环境中茁壮成长的动物逃跑反射会略低，对人类存在的耐受性会略高——就像最初被选中繁育下一代的西伯利亚狐幼崽一样。

Lorenz’s fable became known as the scavenger or rubbish-dump theory, but it took a half-century for scientists to take the idea seriously. In the early 2000s Ray and Lorna Coppinger expanded on it, using the example of dogs that live on rubbish dumps.25 A majority of the world’s estimated one billion dogs are free-range ‘village dogs’ that don’t belong to anyone26 and survive mainly by eating rubbish and human faeces. The Coppingers proposed that feeding on human refuse represented an opportunity for wild animals to carve out a niche as scavengers. The animals that thrived in such an environment would have had a slightly lower flight reflex and a slightly higher tolerance for the presence of humans – just like the initial Siberian-fox cubs that were chosen to breed the next generation.

在德米特里·别利亚耶夫的实验中，只有大约10%的原始狐狸表现出对人类的恐惧程度低于其他狐狸。如果狼也存在同样的恐惧谱，那么每一代新的食腐狼都会包含一些对陌生人稍微宽容一些的个体。这些狼能够在新的食物来源附近停留更长时间，而不会一见到人类就逃跑。而且，由于它们经常一起玩耍，它们也相互繁殖。

Only around 10 per cent of the original foxes in Dmitri Belyaev’s experiment showed less fear of humans than the others. If the same spectrum exists in wolves, each new generation of scavenger wolves would have contained a few individuals that were slightly more tolerant of strangers. These wolves would have been able to stay longer near their new food source without running away at the first sign of a human. And since they were hanging out together, they bred with each other.

这是凯瑟琳·洛德更倾向于的理论。“与人类保持密切联系的能力是进化过程中的一个关键发展，”她说。“它们之所以能够在竞争中胜过野狼，是因为飞行距离缩短了。” 27以人类粪便为食的半野性狗缺乏社会性，但它们已经习惯了人类的存在，只要它们离得太近——有点像公园里的鸽子。142

This is the theory that Kathryn Lord prefers. ‘The ability to stay close to humans became a key evolutionary development,’ she says. ‘They could outcompete wild wolves because the flight distance decreases.’27 The semi-feral dogs that live on human refuse are unsocialised, but they are accustomed to the presence of humans as long as they don’t get too close – a bit like pigeons in a park. 142

从审美层面来看，“垃圾场理论”不如“宠物收养假说”那么有吸引力。它并非提出狗是被人类收养的可爱狼崽的后代，而是认为靠人类垃圾生活的狼进化成了我们犬类伙伴。但它除了解决了狼崽锋利牙齿带来的难题外，还解决了“宠物收养假说”的另一个问题：即使早期人类确实收养了狼崽，一窝通常也只有四只幼崽——这个数量不足以在不造成过度近亲繁殖的情况下从中挑选出最友善的个体。

On an aesthetic level, the rubbish-dump theory lacks the appeal of the pet-adoption hypothesis. Instead of proposing that dogs are the descendants of cute wolf puppies that were adopted by humans, it suggests that wolves living off human rubbish evolved into our canine companions. But in addition to resolving the conundrum raised by the wolf pups’ sharp teeth, it solves another problem with the pet-adoption hypothesis: even if early humans did adopt wolf puppies, a typical litter consists of just four pups – an inadequate population from which to choose the friendliest individuals without excessive inbreeding.

根据垃圾堆理论，即使没有人类干预，一个由更友善的狼组成的可繁殖种群也能发展起来。狐狸实验告诉我们，驯化综合症只需几代就能开始显现。尽管狼进化成狗的时间无疑要长得多，但食用人类的残羹剩饭可能是它们走上这条道路的开端。

Under the rubbish-dump theory, a viable breeding population of friendlier wolves would have developed without human intervention. The fox experiment tells us that the domestication syndrome can begin to manifest after only a few generations. Although wolves undoubtedly took much longer than that to become dogs, eating human leftovers may have started them on that path.

随着时间的流逝，史前人类会注意到垃圾堆周围的动物发生了变化。这些新来者会拥有更可爱的外表和更友善的举止。起初它们会被忽视，但这些原始的狗会乐于与人类接触。一旦人类回应了它们的友好，一段新的关系就可能开始。垃圾堆理论最有趣的一点是，狼可能有效地驯服了自己。28如果这是正确的，那么动物的可爱会激发我们对它们的欣赏，进而导致更多动物变得可爱。

As time went by, prehistoric people would have noticed that the animals hanging around their rubbish heaps had changed. The new arrivals would have had a cuter appearance and a friendlier demeanour. At first they would have been ignored, but these proto-dogs would have been open to human contact. Once people responded to their friendliness, a new relationship could begin. The most interesting aspect of the rubbish-dump theory is that wolves may have effectively tamed themselves.28 If that’s right, then the cuteness of animals encouraged our appreciation of it, which in turn resulted in more cuteness.

如何喂养狼

How to feed a wolf

尽管这一理论颇具吸引力，支持宠物收养理论的科学家却引用了最近的研究，指出垃圾场假说存在问题。雷·科平格和洛娜·科平格夫妇估计，一个拥有280143人的社区需要产生足够的垃圾来养活一群狼。29科平格夫妇假设驯化发生在大约8000年前，但目前的观点认为狼的驯化至少发生在15000年前，甚至可能更早。30当时，人们以小群体生活，经常迁徙；考虑到一只狼每天需要多达六七磅的高蛋白食物，这个数字根本说不通。31

Despite the appeal of this theory, scientists who favour the pet-adoption theory cite recent research that indicates a problem with the rubbish-dump hypothesis. Ray and Lorna Coppinger 143have estimated that it would take a community of 280 people to generate enough waste to feed a founder group of wolves.29 The Coppingers assumed that domestication took place around 8,000 years ago, but current thinking sets the date of wolf domestication to at least 15,000 years ago, and possibly earlier still.30 At that time, people lived in small groups and moved around a lot; considering that one wolf needs up to six or seven pounds of high-protein food per day, the maths just doesn’t add up.31

然而，一个新的假说解释了人类如何喂养狼。芬兰食品管理局的玛丽亚·拉赫蒂宁（Maria Lahtinen）及其研究团队指出，狼是在冰河时代后期被驯化的，当时冰川覆盖了欧亚大陆西部的大部分地区。由于植物生长季较短，该地区的人们依赖狩猎，但摄入过多的蛋白质会导致人类出现一系列健康问题。32

However, a new hypothesis offers an explanation for how humans may have fed wolves. Maria Lahtinen of the Finnish Food Authority and a team of researchers have pointed out that wolves became domesticated during the latter part of the Ice Age, when glaciers covered much of western Eurasia. The shortness of the growing season meant that people in that part of the world relied on hunting, yet eating too much protein causes a host of medical problems in humans.32

另一方面，狼却完美地适应了高蛋白饮食。拉赫蒂宁和她的团队发现，人类产生的蛋白质超过了它们安全摄入的量，尤其是在冬季；他们剩下的肉可以为狼同伴提供食物，使两个物种都受益。狼得到了食物，而人类则得到了捕食者逼近的警告。33

Wolves, on the other hand, are perfectly adapted to a high-protein diet. Lahtinen and her team found that humans would have produced more protein than they could have safely consumed, especially in the winter months; their leftover meat could have provided food for their wolf companions, with both species benefiting. The wolves received food, and the humans were warned of approaching predators.33

拉赫蒂宁团队认为人类故意捕捉并喂养狼崽，因此他们支持的是宠物收养论，而不是垃圾场论。34然而，这并没有解决凯瑟琳·洛德的观点，即在狼崽能够消化肉之前不可能喂养它们——这是一个真正的症结所在。

In their suggestion that humans deliberately captured and fed wolf pups, Lahtinen’s team supports the pet-adoption theory rather than the rubbish-dump theory.34 However, this doesn’t address Kathryn Lord’s point about the impossibility of feeding wolf puppies before they were able to digest meat – a real sticking point.

支持宠物收养理论的最后一点证据，为人类与狼的关系提供了一个推测性却又发人深省的解释，但首先我想解答一个挥之不去的问题。西伯利亚狐实验的成功144表明，其他犬科动物的适应能力足以被驯化，但只有狼最终被驯服了。为什么现在我的脚边没有一只可爱的豺呢？

One last piece of supporting evidence for the pet-adoption theory offers a speculative, yet evocative account of the relationship between humans and wolves, but first I want to address a lingering question. The success of the Siberian-fox experiment 144shows that other canines are adaptable enough to become domesticated, yet only wolves became tame. Why isn’t there a lovable jackal lying at my feet right now?

之前我们看到，康拉德·洛伦兹是第一个提出“垃圾场驯化理论”的人。事实上，他认为狗并非由狼进化而来，而是由金豺——一种天生的食腐动物——进化而来。35洛伦兹认为，狼过于独立，无法解释狗对人类无差别的友好。36他后来又收回了这一观点。狗与豺不同，可以与狼杂交，而且豺的行为的其他细节也与狗不同。

Earlier we saw that Konrad Lorenz was the first to propose the rubbish-dump theory of domestication. In fact, he believed that dogs had evolved not from wolves but from the golden jackal, a natural scavenger.35 Wolves, Lorenz thought, were too independent to account for dogs’ indiscriminate friendliness towards people.36 He later retracted this idea. Dogs, unlike jackals, can cross-breed with wolves, and other details of jackal behaviour don’t match.

是什么赋予了狼群优势？约翰·布拉德肖在《狗的感知》（Dog Sense）一书中写道：“犬科动物的基因组就像一把瑞士军刀，它是一种社会工具，能够抵御进化变化，并能用来应对各种各样的情况。” 37布拉德肖认为，犬科动物的“工具”包括灵敏的嗅觉和狩猎技能，但最重要的元素是灵活的社会性。他认为，狼之所以能够被驯化，是因为它们渴望陪伴。关键在于它们能够建立跨物种联系；换句话说，它们将其他动物视为家人。

What was it that gave wolves the advantage? ‘The canid genome is rather like a Swiss Army knife,’ writes John Bradshaw in Dog Sense, ‘a social toolkit that has remained resistant to evolutionary change and can be used to cope with a wide variety of circumstances.’37 Bradshaw’s canid toolkit includes a good nose and hunting skills, but the most important element is flexible sociality. It is their thirst for company, he maintains, that enabled wolves to be domesticated. The key point is their ability to make cross-species connections; in other words, to view other animals as family.

对布拉德肖来说，狼群的吸引力正是狼区别于其他犬科动物（例如豺或狐狸）的关键所在。狼会合作繁殖，这意味着狼群中较年轻的成员通常会帮助抚养幼崽。因此，狼群并非由“阿尔法”个体主导，而是以合作的方式运作的家庭单位。通过融入这种灵活的家庭结构，人类得以驯化它们。38我们劫持了它们正常的亲属识别机制——就像康拉德·洛伦兹对他的鹅所做的那样。39

For Bradshaw, the lure of the pack is what distinguishes wolves from other canids like jackals or foxes. Wolves practise cooperative breeding, which means that younger pack members often help to raise their baby brothers and sisters. Thus wolf packs, rather than being dominated by ‘alpha’ individuals, are family units that operate cooperatively. By inserting ourselves into this flexible family structure, humans were able to domesticate them.38 We hijacked their normal kin-recognition mechanisms – just as Konrad Lorenz did with his geese.39

布拉德肖认为，狼的驯化可能是基因的偶然事件。一种突变降低了少数狼对陌生人的恐惧，使它们能够与其他物种建立联系，这种突变可能一直处于休眠状态，直到145通过人类接触才被激活。换句话说，一小部分狼可能在基因上预先适应了与人类共存。40西伯利亚狐实验表明，一小部分狐狸也具有这种天生的预先适应能力，而且它可能也是其他物种基因组的一部分。

Bradshaw believes that wolf domestication might have been an accident of genetics. A mutation that reduced the fear of strangers in a few wolves, which enabled them to bond with another species, could have lain dormant until it was activated 145through human contact. In other words, a small percentage of wolves could have been genetically pre-adapted for coexistence with people.40 The Siberian-fox experiment shows that a small percentage of foxes also had this inborn pre-adaption, and it may be a part of other species’ genomes, too.

在大多数环境中，这种“友善基因”不会带来生存优势。另一方面，如果整体环境变得更加和平，就会鼓励友善个体的选择。这正是垃圾场理论和宠物收养理论的共同点。41无论如何喂养，一小部分愿意接受跨物种依恋的狼最终很可能变成了狗。

In most environments this ‘friendliness gene’ wouldn’t confer a survival advantage. On the other hand, if the overall environment became more peaceful, it would encourage selection for friendly individuals. This is where the rubbish-dump theory and the pet-adoption theory have common ground.41 No matter how they were fed, it’s probable that a small percentage of wolves that were amenable to cross-species attachment eventually became dogs.

然而，一个问题依然存在：在短暂的社会化时期，这些更加友善的狼是如何适应人类的？18世纪70年代初，英国探险家塞缪尔·赫恩出版了一本日记，记录了他游历哈德逊湾地区（即如今的加拿大）的旅程。赫恩写道，狼“总是钻到地下产仔；虽然人们自然会认为它们在这种时候非常凶猛，但我却经常看到印第安人走进狼穴，把幼崽抱出来玩耍” 。42

Still, however, a question remains: how could the friendlier wolves have been made accustomed to humans during their short socialisation window? In the early 1770s the English explorer Samuel Hearne published a diary of his trip around the Hudson Bay area of what is now Canada. According to Hearne, wolves ‘always burrow under-ground to bring forth their young; and though it is natural to suppose them very fierce at those times, yet I have frequently seen the Indians go to their dens and take out the young ones and play with them’.42

我第一次读到赫恩的叙述时，不禁好奇这种做法是如何开始的。是谁第一个把手伸进狼窝的？我差点就否定了他的轶事，这时我读到了狼行为专家本森·金斯伯格的这段话：“根据我的经验，如果你把手伸进一个有新生狼的围栏里，一定比例的狼会立刻冲过来，永远不想让你离开……其他幼崽会逃跑，还有一些会陷入回避状态。成年后，那些群居的狼会变得善于与人类交往。” 43

When I first read Hearne’s account, I wondered how this practice would have begun. Who was first to stick their hand into a wolf den? I was on the verge of dismissing his anecdote when I read this statement by wolf-behaviour expert Benson Ginsburg: ‘It is my experience that if you put your hand into a pen with newborn wolves, a certain percentage will come immediately and never want you to leave … Other pups will run away and still others will be stuck in avoidance-approach. As adults, the social ones can become sociable to humans.’43

事实上，人与动物互动专家詹姆斯·瑟佩尔引用了赫恩的描述作为宠物收养理论的证据。他指出，只有少数这种被亲手抚摸过的146狼崽在成年后会与人类相处，但那些确实如此的狼崽可能彼此交配，最终变成了狗。44

In fact James Serpell, an expert on human–animal interactions, quotes Hearne’s account as evidence of the pet-adoption theory. He points out that only a minority of such hand-fondled 146wolf pups would have hung around people after they matured, but those that did may have bred with each other and eventually became dogs.44

对于许多狩猎采集者和半游牧部落群体来说，狼具有精神上的重要意义，他们认为狼是重要的图腾神、导师，甚至是精神兄弟。45所有美洲原住民部落都认为狼可以教给人类很多东西。46更引人注目的是，各种原住民口述历史都包含喂养狼或与狼分享食物的故事。47这种态度在几千年前是否存在？如果是这样，也许对成年狼的尊重关系会延伸到与可爱的幼崽嬉戏的关系。令人着迷的是，人类和狼崽之间的相互玩耍可能是解释狼如何变成狗的最后一块拼图。

Wolves had a spiritual importance for many hunter-gatherer and semi-nomadic pastoral tribal groups, who considered them to be important totemic spirits, teachers and even spiritual brothers.45 All Native American tribes believe that wolves have much to teach human beings.46 Even more striking is the fact that various Native oral histories include stories about feeding or sharing food with wolves.47 Did this attitude exist many thousands of years ago? If so, maybe a respectful relationship with adult wolves extended to a playful one with their cute puppies. It’s fascinating to think that mutual play between humans and wolf puppies may be the final piece of the puzzle explaining how wolves became dogs.

日本的万物有灵精神传统中，嬉闹的情趣根深蒂固，这或许就是拟人化的动物经常出现在日本艺术作品中的原因。当代日本文化也对活生生的动物情有独钟。如今，我在东京街头看到婴儿车时，里面的人很可能是狗，也可能是人。然而，有一只狗尤其体现了日本人对可爱和犬类美德的热爱。它的名字叫八公。

Playfulness is deeply imbued in Japan’s animist spiritual tradition, which may be why anthropomorphic animals appeared so often in its art. Contemporary Japanese culture is in love with live animals, too. These days, when I see a pram on the streets of Tokyo, its occupant is as likely to be canine as human. However, there is one dog in particular that represents the Japanese attachment to both cuteness and canine virtues. His name is Hachiko.